Any Other Tuesday
by Sabari
Summary: When an accident sidelines Robin, he thinks life is going to be boring. But when Gotham is cut off from the rest of the world, he discovers how wrong he was... Possibly AU. Non-slash/non-pairing.
1. Prelude

"_It seemed to me that any civilization that had so far lost its head as to need to include a set of detailed instructions for use in a package of toothpicks, was no longer a civilization in which I could live and stay sane."_  
_-_Wonko the Sane:_ So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish_ (Douglas Adams)

* * *

The warm scent of freshly baked cookies wafted through the air, revealing in their simple existence the true depth of Miss Martian's commitment to good cooking. More than once, Kid Flash had been drawn to it, only to be turned away with a good-natured scolding.

"They're not ready yet," Miss Martian would tell him, holding back laughter.

"They smell ready to me," was his reply, though he would immediately run off, only to return a few minutes later to get the same message again.

"I'll tell you when they're done, okay?."

Whatever his faults, Kid Flash was a dedicated and appreciative customer, a very satisfying person to cook for. Everyone else would try what she was baking and be politely enthusiastic, but they were far from being the food fanatic that Kid Flash was.

Before Miss Martian could announce that the cookies were done, Kid Flash came running.

"They done yet?," he had come in behind her and she was startled to see him as she turned around.

So startled she dropped the tray. Kid Flash, seeing the cookies' peril, darted forward quickly and snatched the tray out of the air. A moment later, he dropped it on the counter and shook first one hand then the other. The cookie sheet was _hot_.

"Yes," Miss Martian said, for the entire incident had taken place in the blink of an eye "they're done. But, as you may have noticed, they're a little hot."

"I did," Kid Flash replied meekly, fussing with his burned fingers.

The pain would diminish momentarily. Part of having a fast metabolism was also having a rapid recovery period. Something as minor as a burn would be gone in no time at all. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt _right now_.

"You shouldn't go running around the cave all the time," Miss Martian admonished "you might break something. Besides yourself, I mean."

"I'm careful," Kid Flash said defensively, but darted an uneasy glance towards the cookie sheet.

He was not oblivious of the fact that his abrupt entrance was what had caused Miss Martian to drop the tray. He knew it, but he didn't have to like it. And he really didn't like being called on it.

Miss Martian put disbelieving hands on her hips, but Kid Flash didn't wait for her to say anything. Instead, he snatched several cookies off the sheet and went galloping out of the kitchen.

Miss Martian had barely turned to the remaining dough, intending to put it on sheets and bake them when there were a series of noises which brought her out of the kitchen and into the training area at a run. A yelling, followed by a series of crashes, and ended with a ferocious yowl that sounded more like a wildcat than anything, all hinted at disaster.

The scene had already been set when Miss Martian arrived, but to fully appreciate what happened, it takes a play by play. It turned out that Miss Martian's prediction had come true sooner than she had ever imagined. And in a very different way than she might have thought.

Aqualad and Superboy had been in the middle of sparring with one another under supervision of Black Canary. Robin and Artemis had been looking on with thinly veiled awe. Merely humans, they had none of the impressive powers of Aqualad or Superboy. There was a running joke among them that Robin could probably kick all of their tails, one which they knew to have at least a grain of truth. It wasn't about his abilities, there was just something which made the Boy Wonder seem totally indestructible.

The joke would never be told again.

When Kid Flash careened into the room, he wasn't watching where he was going. He landed in a puddle left by one of Aqualad's attacks, and slipped. Superboy had just been rearranging himself for another go at Aqualad (who was currently winning). His frustration had made him somewhat careless, and he had unevenly distributed his weight. As a result, when Kid Flash plowed into him, KF's momentum propelled them both across the room and right towards the audience of Artemis and Robin.

"Look out!," Robin shoved Artemis and then took to the air, intending to flip over the metal railing around the sparring area and out of harm's way.

But he wasn't fast enough. Superboy fell back against the railing, pinning Robin's right arm ever so briefly. Robin went absolutely ballistic. It was he who'd yowled. He kicked out, and Superboy would later recall that it actually hurt when Robin hit him.

Robin had been caught as he was going over the railing, so it was hard to say whether it was the impact itself or his own weight which caused the bone to break. All he knew was that there had been an awful snap sound and he was in pain. For a moment, his mind went utterly blank and he was left only with the instincts to defend himself.

Kid Flash's momentum caused him to flip right past Superboy, who was headed for the floor by this time, under the railing and all the way to the opposite wall, which he crashed into before falling flat, where he lay dazed, staring at the ceiling.

Nobody quite knew what had happened. It had all happened so fast. All Kid Flash knew was that his head hurt. All Superboy knew was that something yellow had blasted into him and knocked him over. All Artemis knew was that Robin hit like a linebacker. Everybody else mostly knew that suddenly half of them were lying around on the floor like a bunch of Legos.

Superboy sat up, looking around. He spotted Kid Flash and glared. He knew what had hit him now. But it looked to him like Kid Flash had taken the brunt of the injuries, with Superboy having only wounded pride and lost dignity to show for the escapade. He rolled his shoulders experimentally, then got up.

Artemis came next, sitting up slowly and dusting herself off, wincing when she moved her right shoulder, which was where Robin had impacted. She did not begrudge this, there'd been no time for delicacy. After all, she could have been crushed, and that was a far more dire prospect.

"Is everyone alright?," Black Canary asked after a breath, looking from one person to the next.

There were scattered mutterings as the Team began to absorb the shock, recognizing that it had been a mere accident and that they were in no danger, their heightened adrenalin had nowhere to go, leaving them shaken and more than a little antsy.

"I'm okay," Kid Flash announced definitively "Miss M's cookies, on the other hand-" he stopped abruptly "Rob, you okay?."

"Yeah," Robin's voice betrayed him, for it was little more than a pained gasp.

He'd sat up, but his eyes were shut as though against pain, his knees were drawn up protectively and his right arm was carefully tucked behind them and to his chest. He bit his lower lip.

"You don't look okay," Artemis said.

"Just broke my arm is all," Robin sounded like he meant that to be reassuring "no biggie. I'll be fine."

"Let me see," Black Canary was at his side at once, and Robin didn't protest, though he did yelp involuntarily when she found the spot where the break was.

"Aw, Rob. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry," Kid Flash said miserably "I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm really sorry, I should have been-"

"KF," Robin interrupted "it's fine. Just drop it, okay?. Accidents happen."

"Ones that break your friend's arm?," Kid Flash asked.

"Perils of being your friend," Robin said cheerfully.

"Thanks," Kid Flash sighed unhappily.

"Hey, nobody expects you to watch where you're going all the time," Robin assured him "one could argue this is my fault. I saw it coming, but didn't get out of the way as fast as I should have."

"You weren't the one running through a room with water on the floor," Kid Flash snapped.

He didn't want Robin to make him feel better. He wanted to feel guilty, and Robin wasn't helping him do that.

"Alright, let's get you up," Black Canary said after a moment, taking Robin's good arm at the wrist and elbow, an awkward position for her to be sure.

Even on his feet, Robin was far shorter than she was and she found herself having to be careful not to just yank him off the floor altogether. She wondered which one of them was more deserving of a bird-related monicker; Robin hardly seemed to weigh more than a feather.

"Stop it," he hissed at her, seeing the look in her eyes.

"Stop what?," Black Canary asked, baffled.

"Stop looking at me like that," he jerked his arm away from her "I am not some helpless child. And don't you dare start treating me like one."

She realized her mistake. She'd felt pain at seeing Robin hurt, and allowed her judgment to be clouded. He was small, yes, but far from fragile. On the other hand, he was only human, void of any superpowers or special abilities. Just human, of flesh and bone, so easily damaged.

Kid Flash's little accident could have been the end of the boy.

"You forget who I am," Robin warned her in a low voice "I don't need your pity. I can take care of myself."

With that, he stalked off in the direction of home. He knew he couldn't do any good here and was therefor loath to hang around. He didn't want anyone to coddle him and he certainly did _not_ want to witness Kid Flash moping. And so, he was going home.

There, at least, he would avoid unwanted sympathy.

* * *

_Two weeks later..._

"Will you stop looking at me like that?," Dick fumed at Bruce "so you have to go on a mission away from Gotham. That's nothing new."

Bruce just kept looking at him, saying nothing, unsuccessfully trying to keep his thoughts to himself.

"I promise, I won't get into any trouble. Hey, I've got Alfred to look after me," Dick gestured to the butler, who would have much preferred to have been left out of the discussion "besides, how dumb do you think I am anyway?."

"Not dumb," Bruce said finally, weighing his words carefully "just dedicated."

"Nice way of saying obsessed," Dick commented, and Bruce grunted in response "Look, I promise I'll do my best to act like a teenager. I'll do nothing but eat chips and watch television until you get back."

Bruce raised a skeptical eyebrow, but said nothing. He knew that the only thing shorter than Dick's fuse was his attention span. He just thought too fast for the world around him, that was the truth of it. Good for Robin, but not for Dick, who was constantly bored.

"Hey, coach is happy for once," Dick reminded him.

The teachers at Gotham High were breathing down Bruce's neck. They didn't like Dick's erratic behavior, and had convinced themselves that his guardian was at fault. The truth was, they bored Dick to the point of tears, reiterating facts which weren't interesting the first time for the sake of those who were sleeping in class. But it was the football coach who was most upset.

Not long before Dick's accident, Coach had called Bruce and been all in a snit about Dick's behavior. If the kid didn't level off, the coach said, he couldn't use him. Dick was the best damn player the coach had ever seen, but only every other day or so. Dick was completely unreliable and therefor on the verge of being kicked off the team. Not that Dick seemed to care one way or the other.

Bruce had noticed a certain dispassion for school in Dick. He was alert, eager to learn, and Bruce knew that the shrewd mind behind those bright eyes never forgot a thing it learned. Dick was fluent in a number of languages as well as fighting styles. He had an appreciation for technology and his understanding of science was perhaps only surpassed by Wally and those who did science for a living. Mathematics, economics, you name it, Dick had a better understanding of it than Bruce had at his age.

And yet, in school the boy was flagging. There was no mystery in it. Dick's brain power and energy was wholly devoted to being Robin, both at home with Batman and abroad with the Team. He simply had nothing leftover to give to the education system.

But his two weeks as a "virtual invalid", as he sourly put it, had pleased his teachers to no end. Or some of them anyway. The rest found him virtually unmanageable, now that his entire focus was in the classroom. He was impossible, they said. He asked questions befitting a grade higher than his own, and absolutely would _not_ sit still.

"The mission comes first," Dick insisted after a drawn out moment "you can't go out there worrying about me. I'll be here, at home, until you get back. Count on it."

Bruce felt relieved, because he knew he could believe that. If he'd known what was coming, he wouldn't have felt that way. But he didn't know. Nobody could have.

* * *

_**A/N: This story was initially going to be set between season 1 and 2, but as I was writing it I started to feel it would be better to have it set at some undetermined point in season 1. So it is. As usual, I'm going to say it's probably AU, though not especially intentionally so. Also, as always, this story is completely written. It is has 20 chapters, plus a prelude, interlude and postlude, which makes for a total of 23.**_

_****__As per usual, I will upload one chapter per day (Barring anything out of the ordinary. I will attempt to give readers a head's up via A/N). __This was written for my entertainment, and is being published for yours. If you find yourself not enjoying it, then you should feel perfectly free to stop reading. __Heap praise or criticism upon it, whichever may suit you best. Or say nothing about it at all, if you would prefer._  


**_Originally, this experimental nonsense was supposed to be rather more of a comedy than it eventually wound up being. This is largely because of the huge number of things going on in my life and the lives of the people around me. There were days where I only managed to write a paragraph. In fact, I recall at least two separate instances where I wrote a sentence, decided I didn't like it, deleted the sentence and then quit for the day. It's safe to say I wrote this in a state of mild panic and near unconsciousness._**

**This is no excuse for anything that may be wrong with the story, but more an explanation or warning.**


	2. Chapter 1

_03:07 AM_

Dick was up well before the first light of dawn managed to creep into his room. The sky had not even begun to gray beyond his window. He lay in bed for awhile, staring through the dark up at the ceiling, imagining scenes and pictures on its popcorn surface. He was gathering himself for another mind numbingly boring day where not much happened.

Stupid arm, why'd it have to break?. Why couldn't he have been faster?. He didn't remember yelling, or lashing out at Superboy. The only thing he remembered was a white hot flash of pain and the audible sound of bone snapping under pressure. It wasn't the first bone he'd broken, but it was one of the worst breaks of his life. It would be some time before it healed.

The skin beneath the cast itched like poison ivy, but he'd already mastered ignoring discomfort and paid it no mind. The more he ignored it, the less it bothered him, almost like the itch was just trying to get his attention and went off to sulk if it didn't get what it wanted.

In his mind, Dick saw the Team carrying on without him. They didn't really need him, he knew that. They could handle anything even without his help. That didn't really bother him. In fact, that was the only thing that made this bearable. The knowing that his absence wouldn't make much difference. The Team could get on just fine. They had the training, the experience, all the skills they needed to get through. That didn't mean he was useless among them, just that they could function even without him.

What did bother him was the looks on their faces when he'd left, and Wally's expression on the days he'd come over to visit. Wally felt desperately guilty, and wanted Dick to accept it, to quietly hear his apologies while withholding forgiveness. He wanted to wallow in it, to feel bad about it for as long as possible. And Dick didn't want that for his friend. Or himself.

One freak accident didn't end a friendship. He wasn't mad at Wally. Okay, maybe he was a little mad. But he knew it wasn't a lasting anger, and it really had less to do with what had happened and more to do with not being able to be part of the Team.

Worse though was how Black Canary had looked at him, had treated him. Like a helpless newborn. The others had that same look. Like they'd just now realized he was only human. Except Artemis. He'd seen concern in her eyes, but also a profound worry. She had the same weakness he did, and that was being perfectly ordinary, scientifically speaking. Neither one of them had any special abilities. They weren't aliens or super beings. They were just humans, mere mortals.

Now the Team had seen that Dick could be hurt, and that had diminished him in their eyes. They saw him now as something vulnerable, that needed protection. He only hoped that things would return to normal once he'd healed. If not, he'd have to prove himself to them, as though he hadn't already. Because they could not function while treating him like a glass figurine. And neither could he.

Dick knew that his place in the Team had been jeopardized, and he didn't like it. Not one bit.

A pale flash of purplish light flickered across Dick's vision, dancing across the ceiling like a poor imitation of the Northern Lights. He'd seen those before, but never had time to appreciate it.

Not quite awake, he thought he'd imagined the light and didn't move for a long moment. But, though the flash faded, his ceiling stayed an eery purple hue. The ceiling never looked purple. Not during sunrise or sunset, and certainly not before the dawn.

At once, the last remnants of sleep faded. He forgot where he was for a moment, and dismissed all previous thoughts out of hand. He rolled out of bed and made a cautious advance towards his window. The purple hue faded and flowed around him, no trick of the eye, that was real.

Out the window the whole world was laced with the unnatural color. The grass lawn, the gardens, the trees, Gotham in the near distance. Wayne Manor was perched on a hill at the outer edge of the city. Technically inside the city limits, but well away from all the noise.

For a moment, Dick gazed at the city in blank incomprehension. Then, with a thrill of horror, he looked up. The sky's velvety luster was blocked from view by a coldly shimmering wall of purple. Though he'd never seen this particular design before, Dick knew an energy shield when he saw one.

He knew he had to find out more about this thing at once. Without a second thought, he turned from his window and swept across the room. He opened the door a little more violently than intended, and it crashed into the wall behind him as he continued out into the hallway.

Dick didn't pay it any mind. He knew Alfred would be displeased to find out he was slamming doors every which way, but he didn't think that ranked as a priority right at this very moment.

Dick didn't stop at the foot of the stairs or in the living room, going directly to the batcave, without bothering to see if Alfred was awake.

First things first. He woke up the computer and tuned into a news channel. It was blank and silent for a moment, then an infomercial sprang up. News broadcasts usually started around five. Before that, it was infomercials and reruns of earlier broadcasts. Most news was an eternal rerun, only deigning to provide the audience with information (usually false) once in a blue moon.

But this was a sort of emergency situation. Dick knew it wouldn't be long before the news crews were out there, nattering inanely about something they didn't understand while police tried to simultaneously investigate and keep the general public at bay.

With the news channel gleefully announcing that he'd never had a real blender if he didn't have this one the infomercial was selling, Dick tried to contact the Team. No connection to Mount Justice. He tried the Watchtower. Still nothing. He tried the Batwing, but no luck there either.

It looked like he was on his own.

"What on earth are you up to at such an ungodly hour?," Alfred, not entirely conscious, demanded from the top of the stairs; adding when Dick failed to respond "Master Dick, what's going on?."

The news chose that moment to wake up. A reporter, her hair still rumpled and makeup askew, stood before a camera on the street, in front of the shifting purple mass.

"Oh," Alfred said in a tone of new understanding "I'll put some tea on."

Dick didn't look up, but felt a wave of appreciation. Alfred knew he wasn't going to go out and "poke" the shield just yet. He had some things to do here first. He needed to keep trying to get through to an outside party, for one. He also needed to look into the records, see if they'd encountered a shield like this one. There was nothing for him to do beyond the walls just yet.

Not until the panic started, and that wouldn't be for a few hours yet.

Dick had learned to appreciate the benefits of tea since coming to live here. Alfred, permanently un-American, abhorred the idea of coffee. Dick didn't mind. Never having tasted coffee, he couldn't very well miss it. He had better things to do than sample beverages.

Within moments, Dick was absorbed in his work. He set up a computer program to try different ways of "punching through" the barrier and contacting the outside world. Then he focused on running through the records in the computer to see if they'd ever come across a villain with technology matching the description of this. He didn't bother with the internet, he knew it was down.

In another window, hidden behind the various programs, the reporter was warming to her work. Her voice was stronger now, and had gone up several octaves, denoting a state of severe agitation and (probably consciously) heightening the attention and fear of her viewers, demanding they give her the attention she deserved and be afraid of the unknown thing encompassing the city.

And it had encompassed the entire city. A huge dome lay over Gotham, and there seemed to be no way through it using standard means. Cars couldn't get through and several people had already been injured trying to touch the shield. They were in hospitals now, being treated for what appeared to be electrocution and serious burns.

Dick didn't stir at hearing this. He couldn't do anything about it. The police were mobilizing, advising people to stay in their homes or to seek shelter. Cars and patrolmen were being set up on all the major roads out of Gotham, to try and turn people back. They couldn't leave, so they shouldn't try.

Dick knew the nature of people. Panicked, they would flee their homes and run out into the streets, trying to find a way out. They would surge through the city in a tidal wave, trampling and running over one another, seeking escape where there was none. They would reach the police blockades and be briefly held there. But they would likely break through, crash against the shield. Many people would be killed or injured before this was over. Then they would realize they were trapped, and turn on the police. Commissioner Gordon was about to have the entire city breathing down his neck.

There were a lot of frightened people out there, and this was just the beginning.

Nothing like a news report to make the panic start early.

One would think that, after all the crises Gotham's residents had been through, they'd be a little calmer. But no, that's not how it worked. Panic was their first, second and third response to all stress.

On the other hand, Dick wasn't sure he was any better. Here he was looking for he knew not what, and trying to contact people on the outside even though he knew it to be a futile gesture. He just didn't want to deal with this on his own, he realized. He wanted Batman's help, either directly or indirectly through the records. He was acting like a sidekick, unable to think and act for himself.

_Stop it!,_ he ordered himself fiercely, _you've got to be logical about this. Thorough and careful. You're the only one on the inside, so you can't afford to make any rash decisions that get you killed._

Not to mention he was going into this fight handicapped. He cast a glance at his arm, still virtually useless in its white cast. Aside from that, he didn't know who was doing this, or why.

Unnoticed, Alfred returned. He set down the tea tray and crossed to where Dick sat. Quietly, he put a steadying hand on the boy's shoulder. Dick glanced up at him briefly, and he saw in the boy's eyes that hard set determination which he'd come to recognize as Batman. Yet now he saw it in the... well... son of Batman. Batman wasn't here, so it was up to Robin to shoulder the responsibility. It seemed a burden far too heavy for him, but he didn't seem to care. He was ready to pick it up and carry it as far as was necessary. Until Batman returned, if that was even possible given the circumstances, Gotham would have to make do with Robin, because that's all it had.

"Master Dick, Commissioner Gordon is calling," Alfred said quietly "I could just barely see the signal against the... sky."

Dick didn't respond for a long moment. At last, with a sigh, he seemed to draw himself together, as though gathering himself for a great leap. In a way, he was.

"I'd best see what he wants then."


	3. Chapter 2

_04:00 AM_

Commissioner Gordon was understandably surprised, and a little perturbed, to find his call answered not by the Dark Knight himself, but the Boy Wonder instead. He hadn't seen Robin around for awhile, and certainly hadn't expected him to pop up by himself now.

"Where's Batman?," Gordon asked, his voice betraying his weariness.

He'd had a late night at work, and had just barely gotten to sleep when someone called him and dragged him back to the station to deal with the present crisis. He stifled a yawn as Robin answered.

"He's... busy," Robin decided not to elaborate.

"Too busy for this?," Gordon waved a hand at the glittering purple ceiling which blotted out the sky.

Robin blinked at him from where he sat, perching on the corner of the rooftop, but he said nothing. Gordon sighed, visibly deflating. His shoulders sagged wearily.

"He's not in Gotham right now, is he?."

"No," Robin shook his head "but I should think that's the least of our worries."

_Our worries._ Gordon looked at Robin curiously.

He'd never thought much about Batman's sidekick, and was uncertain how much this boy could actually do. He'd learned to trust Batman, but Robin was essentially a new player, and a young one at that, though it was hard to tell about his age since he was not only wearing a mask, but was of a wiry build. All those kids with light frames looked younger than they were.

"Right now there's panic in the streets," Robin went on, pretending not to notice Gordon's expression "and we both know what comes after that."

"Anarchy," Gordon suddenly felt a little dizzy.

"Cut off from the rest of the world, there are those who will feel the law no longer has meaning. Crime's going to be on the rise, especially over the next few hours."

"I'm calling everyone in, even the ones whose shifts just ended. We're doing everything we can, before this situation gets out of hand," he cast his eyes against towards the glimmering shield, realizing the irony in his words.

The situation was already so far out of hand it was doubtful anything could be salvaged.

"Do your radios work?," Robin asked.

"Yes," Gordon thought the question odd, then realization dawned "but we can't use the phones to call anyone outside of the city. And the internet doesn't work."

"But you can contact everyone inside the city. Interesting," Robin's tone was distant, he was clearly thinking about something, filing the information away for later use.

"There's no indication that anyone outside the city knows what's happening yet. And we may not be the only city that's been locked in," Gordon said.

Robin hadn't thought of that. What if it wasn't just Gotham that was under attack?. That was a worrying notion which warranted further inspection. But one thing at a time.

"I don't know how we could communicate with anyone on the outside," Gordon went on, oblivious of Robin's lapse of concentration "you can't hardly see a thing through the shield unless your right up near it. And we can't stay there long."

Why not?. But Robin didn't ask this aloud, hesitant to reveal how limited his knowledge of the situation was. Instead he sat silently, waiting for Gordon to go on.

"It doesn't look stable, according to our experts. They haven't had much time to examine it, but there's an electrical field near the wall itself. Anybody near it risks getting electrocuted."

"Perhaps it's a defense mechanism and not a sign of weakness," Robin suggested.

"I'm no expert. I can only go by what they tell me. And even they're not sure," Gordon shrugged.

"It's early yet," Robin said, trying to sound cool about it, showing a confidence he didn't feel "We don't know how much trouble we're in yet. For the moment, nothing's happened. The only ones getting hurt are the ones who are panicking. Things could definitely be worse."

Gordon looked again to the sky, which he couldn't see through the purple haze.

"I'm afraid things are going to get much worse before they get better."

He knew before turning to look that Robin was already gone. Like Batman, he came and went without giving warning. Hopefully, he was as resourceful as Batman too. Right now, Gotham was in dire need of that.

* * *

It's entirely probable that Artemis was the first person on the outside to realize that Gotham was cut off from the rest of the world. Newly returned from a mission, she was sore, dirty, exhausted and she just wanted to go home. She tried to use the Zeta-Beam as she always had. Everything seemed to go as normal, but when the light faded she found herself still at Mount Justice.

Baffled, she nevertheless was wiser than to simply try again. Her first assumption was that something was wrong with the device. She returned to the control room, where Superboy and Miss Martian still stood. They lived here.

"I thought you were going home," Miss Martian said.

"I tried," Artemis said "but I couldn't."

The first thing they did was contact Kid Flash, who had already left, to make sure he'd gotten home safely. He was grumpy, having already made it home and into bed, but he shook off his moodiness when he heard what had happened to Artemis.

"_Is she okay?,"_ his voice on the radio betrayed deep concern.

"She's fine. She's here with us," Miss Martian said "But I think maybe we shouldn't use the Zeta-Beam for the time being."

"_You should call Aqualad and let him know,"_ Aqualad had been busy and hadn't gone on the last mission with the Team.

"Okay," Miss Martian said.

"_And contact the League. I'll come back and look at it, but somebody who really knows the technology ought to as soon as possible also,"_ Kid Flash seldom admitted that anyone knew more about... well.. anything than he did.

It didn't take him long to run over. After consuming half the food in the kitchen, he got down to business, examining the device the Team had long trusted to transport them from one place to another. Kid Flash looked beat. He was as tired as any of them, his vast energy reserves almost completely tapped out. Not even food could bounce him back. He needed sleep. They all did.

"This says you were going to Gotham," Kid Flash said, looking up from his work.

"I'm staying with a cousin," Artemis said defensively, shrugging it off "what does it matter?."

"Maybe the problem isn't on our end," Kid Flash spat back, but there was little fire in his comment.

He was too tired to fight with Artemis. And she was too tired to bite back. She opened her mouth to retort, but couldn't think of anything to say and so she didn't say anything at all. She just made an offended noise and crossed her arms. Kid Flash didn't notice.

"Rob's not answering," Kid Flash said after trying in vain to reach the Batcave.

"Well he's not supposed to," Artemis reminded him "he's supposed to be recuperating."

"Yeah, but Batman's out of the city. Rob would totally be keeping tabs on everything, just in case of emergency. I don't think I'm even getting through. It's like the computer I'm trying to contact doesn't even exist... or it's not online."

"The computer at the batcave is never off. Is it?," Miss Martian asked.

"No," Kid Flash shook his head "Bats never sleep."

That wasn't accurate, but it sure seemed like it most of the time. Batman was never unreachable, unless he was out on a mission. Strangely, even though he was an intense loner, Batman was often the most easily reached of any of the members of the Justice League.

"Let's see what we can find out," Kid Flash muttered.

"What are you doing?," Artemis asked.

"Rob made this program that can hack into traffic cameras just about anywhere. I'm betting I can't get one inside Gotham, but there's got to be a traffic light somewhere just outside it, right?."

Artemis didn't bother trying to explain that one rarely found traffic lights outside of a city or town. Besides, traffic cameras were generally focused on cars, not the distance. Kid Flash was wasting his time. Unless...

"There's a power plant owned by Wayne Enterprises just outside of Gotham," Artemis said "it's got hi-tech security cameras on the outside of the building. Maybe you could use them to get a look at the city," _assuming it's still there_, she thought.

"Good idea," Kid Flash said "this could take awhile. I'm not the hacker Rob is-... oh hey."

_Should have known he was using Wayne tech,_ Kid Flash thought.

The security system for the power plant recognized technology matching its own and almost immediately accepted the intrusion. Set on a hill overlooking the city from the side opposite Wayne Manor, the power plant had a great view of the city.

Kid Flash suspected these security cameras were for more than guarding the building. He had a strong feeling that these cameras had been used to get a look at the city before.

"Whoa," he breathed the word aloud.

"Well that's not right," Superboy, silent until now, observed dispassionately.

"That's an understatement," Kid Flash said "this is bad... really bad."

"Now who's making understatements?," Artemis challenged.

"What are we going to do?," Miss Martian asked.

That was the question of the hour. From outside, Gotham looked to be a solid purple mass, like a giant bowling ball had come and smashed into the ground. There was no telling if Gotham was even still there. Was that a solid mass?. Kid Flash knew he'd need to take a closer look. He suspected it was just an energy shield of some type, but it wasn't one he was familiar with.

"We need to get a closer look," he said aloud.

"Do you think Robin's...," Miss Martian trailed off, unable to finish the horrible thought.

"No. I think it's just an opaque shield," Kid Flash soothed, though he wasn't sure himself "Chances are half of Gotham doesn't even know there's a problem yet."

* * *

That may well have been true, but the other half was fast dissolving into chaos. The early risers had joined the all-nighters. People were exiting their houses, seeing the purple sky, and calling their families. Fear was the ruling emotion of the morning.

Robin, sitting on a rooftop and trying to think, watched the place he called home go straight to Hell. Traffic lights were being ignored, nobody was using their turn signals or stopping, everyone was speeding. They wanted out of the city, or to be with their relatives. There had already been more traffic accidents in the last two hours than the entire day of Thanksgiving. Robin didn't even want to think about the number of people who'd been killed or seriously injured.

He looked up at the sky. The sun wasn't even up yet. Would they be able to see when it was?. The sky was probably graying now, but Robin couldn't see it through the shield. The world was tinted purple. He was fast growing to hate that color. It was so unnatural, and it was on everything.

For once, added height gave no better view. Being up on the roof only illustrated the enormity of the problem. He was hemmed in on all sides by that oppressive shield. His view was thus limited. He looked down again. The street lights tried desperately to cast out the purple hue, but it was an exercise in futility. The air was full of blaring horns, screeching tires and the terrible shrieking of metal crashing into metal or concrete or worse.

Robin didn't know what to do. His attempts to contact the outside world had been met only by static. A scan of the shield, from a safe distance, had revealed only that it wasn't a dome at all. It extended below ground. This purple dome was, in fact, a giant bubble.

It wouldn't be long before everyone else knew it too. Electricity would begin to fail, there wasn't enough generated inside the bubble to power the city. Gotham would also run out of water, far more rapidly than anyone would expect. Then, there was that final, largest concern.

This bubble was airtight. By the end of the day, the citizens of Gotham would be suffocating.

_Well, at least Arkham's outside the city limits,_ Robin thought.

That thought was small comfort.


	4. Chapter 3

_5:03 AM_

When the Team arrived at the force field, they found The Flash already present. But he was alone. Evidently, the rest of the Justice League was consumed by other issues. Gotham was only a tiny part of the planet, and Earth was only one planet in an infinite universe. Frankly, it was surprising anyone had time to devote to this at all.

"Won't be long before this makes the national news," The Flash observed, seeming vaguely irritated.

And with good reason. Police, casual scientists, thrill seekers, rubberneckers... all would get in his way. He was a scientist, and he did not appreciate onlookers or interference from outside parties.

"So we'll work fast," Kid Flash said, shrugging "we can do fast."

"We can," Flash replied patiently "but anything we use to test this force field will take time. It takes time to scan and analyze. Time we may not have."

"So let's get started already," Kid Flash said impatiently, shifting from foot to foot.

The worry was plain on his face for all to see. He was frantic for his friend, trapped inside Gotham. He had no idea what was going on in there, and his brain had worked itself into a frenzy, latching onto the worst possible scenarios and replaying them in his mind's eye over and over.

He was concerned for the citizens of Gotham, certainly. But Robin was his best friend in the whole world. And, Kid Flash couldn't help but realize, Robin wouldn't have been in Gotham if not for KF's reckless behavior. It all came back to that.

Robin's broken arm. That's why he was inside there. He was still recovering, and who knew what was happening. He might need help. He shouldn't even _be_ in there. He should be out here, with the Team. Would be, if not for Kid Flash.

Flash and KF set to work, while the rest of the Team looked on. They were about a half mile out from the wall. Even here they could feel the electric current in the air. They dared not step closer. Little bits of electrical current set their hair on end and seemed to crackle through the ground.

Was the inside of this thing like that?. Was anybody even alive in there?.

The sun crept over the horizon and the world was given color. But the sunlight didn't seem to penetrate the purple dome. It was hard to see through it, they could just make out the dimmest shadows and shapes, but it seemed dark inside. Dark and lifeless.

Superboy approached the dome, and received a jolt for his trouble. He was fine, but he didn't try it again. Instead, he stood glaring at the shield, like the blockade of modified energy was a personal affront to him.

"Do you suppose you could reach Robin?," Artemis suggested to Miss Martian.

"It's a big city. He could be out of my range. And I don't know if thought waves can penetrate that shield."

"Probably not," Kid Flash said, looking up from what he was doing "I doubt if even Martian Manhunter could get through it. Mentally or physically."

"So they're completely cut off," Artemis said aloud, confirming what they'd all been thinking.

She didn't add their other thought.

_Assuming there's anyone still alive inside._

* * *

Robin knew the sun should be up by now. But the world didn't look any different. It was still dark, the tone of the purple barrier overhead hadn't changed at all. Gotham was still under a shroud of darkness, tinted with faint purple light.

Robin noticed another thing. It should be getting warmer, what with the sun coming up. But it wasn't. It was getting colder. Midsummer was supposed to be hot, but Robin could feel the air around him cooling at an alarming rate. Cut off from the warmth of the earth and sun, Gotham was turning into a ball of ice. He wondered how long it would be before the rest of the city noticed.

Everybody was still scrambling, screaming, panicking. But the tide was turning. People were leaving the shield, and starting to round on the figures of authority. Robin knew that the real danger would only arrive when people became silent. So long as they were yelling, they were trying to make themselves heard. When they stopped shouting, then the true violence would begin.

It had already begun. Robin had put a stop to several robberies, tying up the would-be thieves for the police to deal with when they got the time. That might be awhile. The whole city had gone nuts.

Right at the moment, Robin was conducting some tests of his own at the one point of the energy shield where nobody was hanging around. He was on the roof of the tallest building in Gotham. He could feel the air around him was supercharged with electricity. The purple ceiling was just barely above his head. Instinct made him flatten against the building roof while he worked, as though afraid that the ceiling was going to suddenly drop lower and squash him. Perhaps that fear was in him somewhere.

At this height, with nothing shielding him, Robin knew the wind should be tearing at him. There should be enough wind to pluck him from the roof if he wasn't careful. But there wasn't. The air was absolutely still. It was unnatural. It was giving him the shudders.

_Come on, there's got to be something I'm not seeing. Energy bubbles don't just pop up out of nowhere. There's got to be someone behind it. And there's got to be some clue as to who they are in the energy signature. Or something. Dammit, I'm no scientist, what do I know?._

He yelped when a crack of electricity lashed out suddenly and snapped at the roof, chipping off bits of it and sending them flying into the infinity below. Robin crouched lower, even knowing it wouldn't do him a bit of good.

He wasn't finished with his scans. Once that was done, he could get back to the Batcave to analyze. He wished he could do something else, to put a stop to all the violence going on far below. But he'd already done that, and it was a waste of time. There were too many people. Just too many.

Batman wouldn't have given them a second glance. He knew where he was most needed. He always knew. He was not unsympathetic to the plight of humanity, but he knew that sometimes the direct and obvious approach was not the right one.

Robin had to figure it out the hard way.

* * *

"Looks like Gotham's made the news," Artemis observed, gesturing towards the road.

News crews and police cars were kicking up clouds of dust as they came on. It wouldn't be surprising at all if the military showed up before long and pushed everyone else out of the way.

Superboy looked skyward. Following his gaze, the others at first saw nothing, then managed to make out the dim outline of helicopters.

"Police?," Miss Martian guessed.

"Camera crews," Superboy told her dryly.

A police cruiser drove up, stopping just short of where the Team was standing.

"You can't be here," the policeman began, getting out of his car "this is a crime scene."

"Crime scene?!," Kid Flash exploded, his voice high pitched with indignation "crime scene, he says!. Ha!. I guess that's what you'd call it, if you were simple minded."

"Kid...," Miss Martian tried to calm him, but he would not be soothed.

"Right now, we know more about what's going on than anybody else, except maybe the people inside that shield," Kid Flash snarled angrily "and we're your best chance at getting it shut down. If I were you, I'd get out of our way."

Flash put a staying hand on Kid Flash's shoulder. The teen continued to fume, but stopped running his mouth. He turned away and stalked off, hands clenched into fists.

"I guess you haven't been watching the news," the policeman said, subdued now that he'd recognized The Flash and the rest (if only vaguely).

"Why?. What's it got to say?," Flash asked quizzically.

"Gotham is being held for ransom," the man replied, shrugging "that's all I know. Nobody told me any details."

"They're holding a city hostage?. What do they want?," Artemis asked, somewhat shocked.

"I don't know, miss," the policeman replied helplessly "I don't know who or why."

"That makes what we're doing here all the more important," Flash announced after a moment's consideration "we've already discovered that there's a time limit on this."

The policeman was silent, but interested.

"This isn't a dome. It's a bubble. Neither sunlight nor air is getting in. The people inside are alive and well now, but it won't be long before...," he hesitated, and Kid Flash finished for him.

"Before they all freeze to death. If they don't suffocate first."

"I think," the policeman said slowly "that maybe you should talk to my boss."

"We're not going anywhere," Flash told him "if your boss wants to talk to us, he'll have to come here. We've got work to do."

* * *

_There's something about this. I know this technology. If I could just-_

Robin's thoughts were interrupted by a sudden snap of electricity to his right, immediately followed by one to his left. It was definitely time to leave. These weren't random, he realized. This was a defense system, designed to attack anything that got too close to the shield. To prevent anyone from trying to breach it or damage it in any way.

_Not such an invincible shield, eh?. Your shield needs a shield._

In any other context, Robin would have found the idea funny. But there was no room for laughter here, as another arc of reddish-purple light shot out, narrowly missing Robin's head and slicing off a thin section of the roof instead.

Before that had burned itself out, another came down right behind Robin, catching a bit of his cape.

_Yeow!. Too close!._

Robin darted towards the edge of the roof, pausing only long enough to put the fire on his cape out. He did not appreciate being lit on fire, but he could take a hint. More electrical assailants came plunging down at him, and he leaped from the roof without a first glance.

As he fell, he twisted in the air and pulled out his grappling hook. He had to fall a few stories anyway, just to get in line with another building. He shot a line out, a line which was immediately severed by a vicious snap of red-purple light.

Robin flattened out, and repositioned himself in the air to slow his descent.

_Well that's not good,_ he thought.

He was in luck though. A television chopper had been circling his rooftop, the reporter trying to guess at what he thought he was doing. As he fell past it, he tossed his secondary grappling hook the old-fashioned way. It caught on the landing gear and his fall was brought to a jarring and rather painful halt. The chopper lurched with the added weight, but leveled off shortly.

Robin looked up at the rather alarmed camera man, who was aiming the lens down to catch all the action. Brave guy, that one. He'd nearly been bucked out of the chopper and still he was filming. Camera men were utterly devoted to their work. Or so Robin had heard.

"Excuse me," Robin said, not sure the camera man could hear him.

The chopper dropped low enough for Robin to jump down to a rooftop. He waved at the chopper, then tossed a smoke pellet to conceal his exit. After all, he needed to maintain his reputation of mystery. He couldn't just let camera crews follow him around. They'd only found him by accident, and he certainly didn't want to prolong the encounter.

He'd only allowed it to happen because the lighting was so bad. A regular camera couldn't get a good view of him and it was too light for night vision to work properly. All the public got was an eye-full of grainy, virtually colorless picture, a blurry image of a small person wearing a cape. And, right at the moment, nobody much cared. The camera crew was actually up there to get shots of the shield, not vigilantes. They'd just happened upon Robin and decided to film him.

Lucky for him.

_That's a first,_ he thought as he slipped away,_ never thought I'd be grateful for media presence._

The thought didn't linger because, just then, the computer in his gauntlet trilled out an alarm. He looked at it. Someone had broken into Wayne Manor.

_Damn,_ he thought.

He was halfway across the city. Even with the R-cycle, which he had left hidden nearby, it would take forever to get there.


	5. Chapter 4

_06:30 AM_

The R-cycle came skidding into the Batcave and Robin dove off it almost before it had stopped. He could hear the alarm inside the house now, even down here. The cave hadn't been touched, much to his relief. He took precious seconds to call up images from the security cameras on the cave computer. He didn't want to waste time looking for people, especially if they weren't there.

Before he was halfway through the images, he saw one that made his blood run cold. Forgetting all caution, Robin bolted up the stairs and made for the kitchen.

Alfred lay prone on the tile, blood on his forehead. Robin knelt beside him and felt for a pulse, his own heart beating so wildly he couldn't feel it at first. He had to take several deep breaths to calm his own pulse enough to feel Alfred's. It was there, steady and strong as it ought to be.

Robin closed his eyes briefly, relief flooding through him so powerfully that he felt weak. He wiped a hand down his face and forced the tension in his shoulders to let go. The house phone was still on the hook, Alfred hadn't made it that far. Not that it mattered. The house security system would have sent a message to the company computers that this house was being robbed. In turn, the police would have been called. Benefit of being rich and up-to-date, technologically speaking.

But it hadn't been enough, had it?. Not this time. The police were spread too thin, crimes were in progress all over the city. Wayne Manor was just one crime among hundreds, if not thousands. Not to mention traffic accidents.

_Anarchy._

Hard to believe that just a little over two hours ago, it had been just a word, a threat to the future. Well, now it was present. Robin had known two hours ago that there would be no stopping it, but he hadn't once thought that it would invade his very home. Wayne Manor was not the most accessible pot of gold in Gotham. And that was why it had been targeted, of course.

The police couldn't come all the way out here with everything going on in the city. Places like Wayne Manor were virtually defenseless, especially with nobody home. It was public knowledge that Bruce Wayne was overseas on a business trip (which wasn't a total lie, just mostly). Only his butler and ward were on the premises. Small defense against multiple intruders.

And there did have to be more than one, unless they were a professional. That seemed unlikely. Alfred had doubtless seen the intruders and come in here to call the police. But they weren't worried about the police, were they?. No, they were worried because Alfred had seen them.

The blow to the head had been meant to kill him, but it hadn't. A professional would have made sure. After all, there was no need to panic, they had no way of knowing that this mansion was right above the lair of Batman. They had all the time in the world.

It was almost funny, really. Alfred never even turned on the security system unless Bruce was gone. He really didn't want the police here, for obvious reasons. And now, he'd finally used the silly device, and no help would come. But Robin was in no mood to laugh.

He checked the butler's wound more closely and shook his head. He could perform miracles with a first aid kit, but this required a real doctor. And he was nowhere near that. He knew calling for an ambulance was a futile gesture, it might be hours before one could get out this way.

_And Dick Grayson doesn't have a license,_ he thought.

He knew how to drive, of course. He closed his eyes and took a breath. Okay. Well, he wasn't likely to be arrested for trying to get his friend to the hospital. Besides, who'd be dumb enough to pull him over and check his license with all the other chaos around?. Unlicensed drivers and people who turned without signaling were the least of the Gotham PD's problems today.

With practiced ease, Robin started to pick Alfred up and sling the wounded man over his shoulder. Alfred was not a particularly large man, but he still weighed a lot more than Robin. Robin had barely started the maneuver which would bring the butler's body across his shoulders when he heard a crash overhead, on the second floor.

The intruders were still here!.

Robin eased Alfred back onto the floor. He needed to lose the costume anyway. Might as well take these creeps out before he did that and change while he was upstairs.

_Don't let anger guide you,_ he warned himself,_ they're just thieves. They don't deserve worse than anyone else you've taken out today._

But his insides were churning, as though his very blood was demanding vengeance for what had befallen Alfred, his friend. He decided to wait until the burglars came downstairs. It would give him a few seconds, or minutes, or whatever, to cool off. And he did have to cool off.

Right now he wanted to kill them.

* * *

While the Flashes were busy outside, the rest of the Team had convinced employees at the Wayne Enterprises power plant to let them come in and use the television.

"What I wouldn't give for Robin's computer about now," Artemis commented to Miss Martian.

With his computer, he could have found out whatever they needed to know almost at once. As it was, they were reduced to watching a news broadcast and hoping the reporter knew more than they did. Silently, Artemis cursed the necessity of being without a cell phone, which might well be traced back to you if it fell out of your pocket.

The male reporter was animatedly talking about press conferences and how various public officials were very concerned about the "issue". Leave it to the politicians to make everything about themselves. Never mind that a city was in jeopardy, there was a real issue to debate on and everybody wanted a hand in that. It was obvious that nothing was being done by them, nor was it likely to be done in the near future.

The absurdly good-looking reporter went on to dictate how this event might affect the various careers of many a politician. He also soberly reminded everyone that this was a tragedy which shouldn't have happened, that it was unfortunate that nobody had taken steps to prevent this. But, then again, who could have anticipated this?. Other than whoever the favorite political goat was.

Not one of the Team knew or cared who that was.

"This is ridiculous," Artemis fumed "here's an opportunity for actual, honest-to-God news reporting, and what do they do?. They turn it into the same sensationalistic garbage they're always selling."

Superboy and Miss Martian exchanged looks. They'd never watched the news, so they hadn't the foggiest idea what Artemis was so steamed up about. Other than the obvious, which was that they were not getting the information they wanted from this channel.

Miss Martian changed the channel, but it was just a female reporter saying _exactly_ the same things in different words. Another channel revealed that all news stations were doing the same thing. And that was avoiding the issue entirely by burying it under inane babbling and teeth gnashing at whoever they didn't like. In effect, the media was doing what the politicians were doing: making this about them.

"Would it kill them to convey a little useful information?."

"It just might," commented one of the employees, who was on his break.

His comment was followed by a mirthless laugh, he lived in Gotham. This bearded fellow with his rugged features was also husband and father to those in the city which was now under attack. He understood all too well that Artemis' feelings had little to do with the media and a lot to do with worry for a friend or family member.

The news, supposedly a source of information, was making a mockery of itself. It was maddening for those watching. Couldn't they go into more details instead of repeating the same tired dialogue over and over again like some kind of chant?.

They began to wonder if these reporters had any information at all. Maybe they weren't holding out. Maybe they were desperate to convey information but had none. Maybe their senseless babble was a last ditch attempt to save their network and thus their jobs. Maybe, but who cared?.

"_The president has just released a statement,"_ a reporter nattered.

The broadcast cut to The President, standing behind a lectern, looking very gravely at it. Clearly he'd been making notes. He looked up, as though surprised to find a camera and audience. If he took a deep breath before speaking, nobody noticed.

He spoke eloquently and at length, and it basically came down to: we will not give in to terrorist demands. And that was it.

"Terrorists?. What kind of terrorists have that technology?," Artemis scoffed at the idea.

"You can buy anything online these days," commented the Wayne Enterprises employee.

His break was over, but nobody would care. Not with his wife and kids involved in this mess.

"It doesn't sound right," Miss Martian asserted "he's hiding something."

"Not terrorists?," Artemis asked.

"Depends on your definition," Miss Martian replied "clearly, if you mean someone who uses terror to get others to do what they want, then yes, we are dealing with terrorists."

"But not the way he means. This isn't an act of war by another country."

"Doubtful," this was said by Aqualad, who had just arrived "an earlier report stated that the person doing this demanded 'ownership' of Gotham itself. That speaks of someone who lives there."

"Ownership?," Artemis wondered at the word "what's that supposed to mean?."

"I do not know," Aqualad admitted "but I intend to find out. Have you had any success contacting anyone inside the energy shield?."

"I haven't tried," Miss Martian admitted "the only person I could get through to would be Robin, but he'd have to be in my range. He probably isn't."

"Still, it is worth trying. He may well think of the same thing. If we can contact him, we can find out what is going on inside, and perhaps begin to resolve this."

"Okay," Miss Martian said "I'll try."

Kid Flash had come in with Aqualad, but stood quietly until now.

"I'll show you the best spot," he said, then added hurriedly "the shield is weaker there."

It was no secret that Kid Flash knew of Robin's alter ego. The rest of them had their suspicions, but hadn't yet been told. Kid Flash was doubtless taking Miss Martian to a spot near the batcave, but nobody pointed this out.

* * *

Robin had moved to the base of the stairwell. He could hear voices. Three. One was impatient, he wanted to leave. One wanted to look around some more, she was arguing her case with raised voice. The third was a voice of reason, advising his companions to keep their voices down and begging them not to fight. Not here. He was wiser than the rest, which would have made him more dangerous if he didn't sound like such a pacifist.

Three. It took three people to knock out a butler and rob an empty mansion. They sounded little older than Robin himself, in their late teens or early twenties. A bunch of kids, who probably wouldn't be held all that responsible for their act of violence.

"Oh, they were just having fun. You know how kids are," that's what someone would say in their defense. And wouldn't it go that they'd be let out of jail almost at once?. After all, they hadn't actually killed a man in cold blood. They'd just meant to. But try and prove it.

Robin knew he was too angry to think straight. He had to get out of this situation before he did something he'd regret. He had to get out _now_. But he didn't want to, and there was nobody to stop him.

He heard the grandfather clock in the den strike the time with its clear bell tones. He hesitated.

"_Robin, can you hear me!?."_

He withheld a cry of shock as the voice shouted into his mind. He shook his head and backed up, feeling deaf even though the shout had never touched his eardrums.

"_Geez, what are you yelling about?,"_ he hissed mentally, backing towards the kitchen.

The clock was still chiming. He didn't mind the mental intrusion so much as the total lack of warning. The shock was almost painful.

"_Robin!. I'm so glad I reached you. I was sure you'd be too far away."_

"_Obviously not,"_ Robin muttered.

"_What's going on in there?,"_ Kid Flash had now entered the conversation.

"_Oh, you know. Panic, carnage, mayhem, general chaos. How 'bout you guys?."_

"_Will you be serious?," _Kid Flash snapped_ "it looks bad out here. Somebody's making demands and it doesn't sound like the government intends to meet them. You do know you've only got hours left in there, right?."_

"_Not news, KF. The air in here's dead still and getting stale in places already. And it's beginning to get chilly outside. I am so not whelmed right now."_

The use of one of his favorite words did little to ease the tension in his mind. Tension the others could feel, even though he put no words to it. The desire to kill was fading now, replaced by the urgent sense that he needed to do something. Right now, that was to get Alfred some help.

The grandfather clock finished chiming. It was now seven o'clock.


	6. Chapter 5

_07:17 AM_

Robin barely changed out of costume. He drove Alfred to the nearest hospital, came in and announced that he had an injured man, wasn't allowed to go in with the doctor on account of being unrelated and then he immediately left.

He was out of contact with the Team now, and searching the city at Kid Flash's instruction. He was looking for the shield's power source, which Kid Flash said must be inside somewhere. He wasn't totally in the dark. Kid Flash said the device would be in the middle of the bubble. He'd described it to Robin. Unfortunately, Robin couldn't exactly visually measure the precise center of the bubble. He didn't have a yardstick long enough, for one thing.

So he had to make a guess, and hunt around that area in the hope of getting lucky. Not much of a plan. Then again, it was more than he'd had before.

Right now, he was perched on a rooftop, trying to guess where the device would be. Not in the street, certainly. In a building then. Okay, but which building?. He looked at them. On one side of the street there ran a string of local stores. On the other side was a bank, a library, a corner cafe and some spaces that hadn't been rented out.

Nothing looked promising. These weren't residences, so nobody could secret a large shield power source in any one of them. The only way there was such a device inside was if someone had broken in last night and put it there. Possible, but hardly likely.

Setting off an alarm before the shield was up would be a huge risk. Only an idiot would take such a huge risk, unless there was no way around it. And Robin was certain that there was a way around it.

It was mildly disturbing that his mind so easily wrapped itself around the problem, putting aside all of its implications and focusing only on attaining the desired goal of whoever had put up the shield. There was such a thing as knowing the enemy a little _too_ well.

He set that thought aside, putting it on the shelf for later. He had better things to do than debate morals, ethics and psychology with himself. Much better things to do. Such debates were a waste of time, especially when one had them with themselves.

He scampered around the block a few times, more to run off nervous energy than anything. Though it had been an eventful morning, Robin had found that stress made him hyper. After his nerves settled, he became more serious in his explorations of the area. There had to be something here, somewhere.

As he moved, he realized that he felt hot for some reason. It took him a bit to puzzle out why that was. The temperature was supposed to be dropping, not rising. Then it hit him. Obviously, it was because there was no air moving. He'd run around, raising his body heat, generating a sweat, but there wasn't any air to make it evaporate and cool him down.

He filed that away for later. He'd have to be more careful. Not that it would matter in the long run. Eventually, it would be cold enough to turn water to ice. Then he wouldn't have to worry about the wind. But that problem was some way off, and he could just barely envision it.

Besides, this was hardly the time for speculation.

Robin knew what his problem was. He'd circled the block several times, more thoroughly inspecting it each time, and there was no sign of a shield power source. He ranged in greater circles. A six block radius told him that it wasn't here. But it had to be here.

Kid Flash had told him where to look, and now he'd looked there. And it wasn't there.

Robin was never one to be drawn too deeply into frustration. He sat down on the corner of a rooftop to think the problem over. He knew Miss Martian and Kid Flash were waiting for some kind of report from him, but he didn't feel like returning to the Batcave empty-handed.

Could the device be cloaked somehow?. It seemed doubtful. This technology was advanced, yes, but hardly in the range of stealth ships. No, it wasn't in that league. It seemed a very Earthy technology, perhaps inspired by alien devices, but not designed from them. The shield's shield was a bizarre twist, a distinctly human-like way of making something.

So not cloaked. Therefor, it wasn't hiding in plain sight. That was something. That meant he didn't have to scour every square inch of this area in the hopes of tripping over it.

He looked down abruptly. Street level wasn't the exact center, was it?. No, this was a _bubble_. Though perhaps more oval than circular, like a giant egg lying on its side. He'd been thinking that he could see half of it, and that the device would be at ground level. But what if he was looking at less than half of it?. What if most of it was underneath the ground?. That meant the device would be there too. But where?.

Subways?. Sewers?. Down below ground, that was for sure.

Robin got up and circled again. And, not surprisingly, he came across a subway entrance just beyond the six block radius. The tunnel went right under where he'd been searching, he was sure of it.

* * *

Kid Flash was eating. He'd worked himself into a frenzy before, not knowing whether his friend was alive or dead. He'd run himself in circles, pacing at high speeds just because he was so worried. Aside from which, there was the long trip between his home and Mount Justice earlier that morning. He was exhausted, and starving, though he hadn't realized it until he found out Robin was alive.

Now he could eat. He'd raided the power plant employees' fridge, they said they didn't mind. He'd inhaled pretty much everything that wasn't frozen, and was now in the process of consuming a microwavable meal at a more reasonable rate.

"He should be back by now," Kid Flash said, shifting from one foot to the other, while balancing his bowl of food with one hand and twirling a fork with the other "don't you think he should be back?."

"Kid," Miss Martian said with a sigh of infinite patience, for this was something she had repeatedly tried to explain to him "he doesn't have super speed. Do you have any idea, at all, of how long it takes to cross a city without super speed?."

Kid Flash froze, a bite halfway to his mouth and a thoughtful look on his face. For a moment, he didn't move. Then he shook his head and went back to shoveling food.

"Not a clue."

"A very long time," Miss Martian told him "we may not hear from Robin for hours."

"Hours?," Kid Flash was suddenly alarmed "the city only has hours!. It's not enough to find the device, he's got to know how to shut it down!. And he won't know how to do that that until he sees it and tells me more about it!. We don't have _hours_!."

To emphasize his point, he gulped down the last of his food, chewing on the last bite furiously.

"I'm sure Robin is going as fast as he can," Miss Martian said gently.

"This is my fault," Kid Flash began to pace again "if I'd been more careful, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. He wouldn't even be in there if not for me. What I wouldn't give to switch places with him!."

"We all feel that way," Miss Martian reminded him "don't you think it drives me crazy to know he's in danger and not be able to help, or even see if he's still alive from one minute to the next?. If my telepathy were stronger, we'd still be in contact and he wouldn't have to go through the trouble of coming back to tell us what he found."

"Hey, at least you can do something. Without the mind link, we'd all be sitting on our hands. At least now we know he's alive, and have some kind of plan. That's more than we had before."

He put a hand on her shoulder and she smiled weakly for him. She hadn't even realized how upset she was until she'd tried to comfort Kid Flash. At least he was distracted now.

"Hang on," he told her "I'm gonna go get more food. I'll be right back."

She watched him go. So fast, so energetic, needing so much fuel just to keep himself going. She wondered distantly if Robin had eaten anything this morning. It seemed an odd thought to have, but it occupied her for awhile. She supposed he probably hadn't. After all, she hadn't eaten since this started, why in the world would Robin, who was right in the middle of it?.

* * *

Underneath the city was a network of tunnels, at once vast and intricate. Robin had the blue prints copied to the computer in his gauntlet from the maps saved to the computer in the Batcave. He'd done it just in case something like this happened. If you had to go underground, the need was usually immediate, and getting lost was a real possibility.

Maybe he'd even unconsciously realized what he now felt he knew for certain, that the device was below ground, somewhere in this maze of tunnels and passages.

It was dark down in the tunnels, and Robin's flashlight didn't seem to do much to the shadows down here. They were just too thick, almost a solid mass of blackness. But Robin wasn't worried. Sure, he knew the stories of monsters in the sewers, but he could take care of himself. Besides, he had bigger concerns right now, as did any monsters that might really exist down here.

Truth be told, Robin probably could have wandered right into the lair of someone like the Joker and gotten out unharmed. The shield affected everybody. It was going to kill anything trying to live inside it. That was a fact even the most hardened criminal nut-job could understand. Robin was the least of any villain's problems right now, hardly even worth considering much less bothering with.

The problem with tunnels is that they were not straight lines to where Robin wanted to go. They wound around and crisscrossed one another, and there were only so many ways to get to the next level down. First, Robin would have to reach what seemed to be the middle of the city. He'd have to search that area, and then go the next level down, and maybe the next after that.

As many levels as it took to find the thing.

Then, since chances were he wouldn't be able to just figure out how to shut it down safely, he'd have to go back, relay his information to Kid Flash. If KF didn't know how the device worked, then KF would have to go and ask someone else or do some kind of research. It could take a lot of time to figure it out.

The worst thing about human technology was that it was unrefined and inconsistent. Even standardized computer systems had their variances, all caused by human inclination and preference. Things like power buttons were always traveling up and down the front, back and sides of computers. Those little card sliders in stores, the slider was always moving around. First at the top, then one side, then another. Which side up on the card?. Nobody knew. Which way to slide the card?. Up in the air.

This was far worse than that. If Robin pushed the wrong button or played with the wrong wires, the device wouldn't necessarily just do nothing. It would very likely backfire, perhaps killing him, maybe destroying the entire city. Robin couldn't afford to take any chances. Not with Gotham at stake.

And that meant he had to be quick.


	7. Chapter 6

_08:15 AM_

Superboy felt impatient, and useless. So many lives were in danger, and he couldn't do anything about it. His near-invulnerability and immense strength would not serve him here. He'd already tried to force his way through the shield, and it hadn't worked. Not that it really would have mattered anyway.

What was it Kid Flash had said?. Oh yes: What do you intend to do, punch a hole through an energy barrier?. Lots of luck to ya.

Superboy was annoyed by that. Though that was mostly because KF had a point. No matter what Superboy thought or felt, this situation was obviously nothing to do with him. He couldn't help, all he did was get in the way. It was frustrating to have so much power, yet be incapable of doing the slightest thing to make a difference and help his team.

He knew he wasn't alone in that. Aqualad and Artemis were also unable to do anything to assist. But that didn't make him feel one bit better. It was evident that Kid Flash and even The Flash were in over their heads, and Miss Martian could only allow them to contact Robin inside the shield. But if KF and Flash couldn't fix the problem on the outside, what possible difference could Robin make on the inside?. Superboy didn't know, but the situation seemed bordering on hopeless to him.

Of course it was a little early for despair. So Superboy turned instead to impatience with the whole thing. He'd gone outside to clear his head.

Widely spaced structures dotted the nearly barren landscape. In the distance on one side rose up the next city over. On the other the land flattened out and seemed to just fade away, turning slowly to the ocean miles beyond. And Gotham, in its entirety, was encased in a tomb of purple energy, a dome of shallow light looking like an alien space craft crashed into the Earth.

Superboy tried, but couldn't see or hear anything on the other side of the barrier. It was as if the people on the other side simply didn't exist in reality. It was hard to believe how empty and still the area seemed, knowing that there was a huge city just inside the dome. All that was left were a few crippled neighborhoods on the far fringes, none of which Superboy could see from where he stood now.

Then suddenly there was a sound overhead. Looking up, Superboy saw that a part of the shield was shifting. It was modulating, its color was changing somehow. Superboy had no idea what it meant, if indeed it meant anything at all, and stared up at it vacantly. He wondered if he should go back to the others and tell them. But whatever was happening now might be over by then.

He should stay and watch, see all he could, and then relate that to the Team when it was over. It might be important. How was he to know if it wasn't if he didn't stay and find out?.

The patch of shift started to change, its edges becoming sharper, then less distinct, becoming a sort of pale yellow, then fading all at once back to the deep hued purple at its base. There was a sound too, beneath the electric danger signal of the shield's shield, the guardian of the wall. At first, Superboy couldn't identify it, even with his keen senses. It was a meaningless noise, almost drowned in the mechanical hisses and snaps of the great machine.

Then a dot of black-gray appeared amidst the yellow, gaining form and then substance. Like a shot from a cannon, a dark-winged dove launched itself from the shield, its wings a blur generating a whirlwind of loud flapping, more like frantic clawing at the air than actual flying.

It made it about fifteen feet before the spasms faded and it became apparent that the creature was dead. It hit the ground with a soft _piff_. It was followed by a handful of others like itself, each meeting the same fate, having been killed in crossing over.

Superboy stepped back in abject horror. The birds were desperate to escape, and none could tell them that their route was blocked by death. To get across the barrier, they had to die. But they didn't care, and they just kept coming, one after the other, though many were struck down before ever reaching the barrier itself. A cloud of them came as one, feathers flew everywhere. They fell, dropping to the ground like flies, all except for two, which flew away evidently unharmed.

Superboy might not know a great deal about technology or science, but he did know that a shield was designed to keep things in or out. It was a solid barrier, yet these doves seemed capable of flying through it somehow. He backed away from the barrier, if that was truly what it was.

The glow faded, the flock of birds was done for. Of whatever number they had started with, only two birds had made it across safely. Looking up though, Superboy saw that there were other birds in the sky, perhaps more escapees.

"_M'gann, come here, and bring the Team. There's something you should see."_

* * *

Out and out panic was beginning to subside within the walls of Gotham. While fear can be maintained indefinitely, panic is something which can only be granted substance for a short time before body and soul quail at thought of its continuance. Panic is a finite thing, a fight or flight response designed to deal with the horror of the moment and nothing more, though it often seems to short circuit in people, leaving them frozen in their fear, unable to decide whether to fight or flee.

Yet as panic subsided, a new emotion arrived to overtake the fear. Suddenly the citizens of Gotham were angry. They didn't like this situation, and turned their wrath on the only available source: Gotham City's Police Department. It should be doing something. So should people in power, like the mayor.

A new kind of mob was born, forming into a riot instead of a stampede. Not given the option to flee, the public turned to the only other course: fight. Only there was no enemy readily at hand, so they had to invent one in their own minds.

Ordinary people who might otherwise never even violate a traffic light now began to actively vandalize, expressing their rebellion in the only ways that they knew how: through violence and destruction. Now the everyday citizens joined with the opportunists and rebels in breaking things apart.

Surely there were people who simply locked their doors and barred their windows, hiding and waiting for it to be all over, but those people were doubtless few in number and far from the thoughts of Police Commissioner Gordon. After all, those people weren't causing any trouble.

Though he knew better, his mind irrationally flew to blame Batman for his absence. This was no doubt a nemesis of the Bat, and he should be here to deal with it. Gordon knew better, but he couldn't silence that voice arguing that this was somehow Batman's fault. By proxy, some part of him also blamed the Boy Wonder. He knew Robin was here, but the sidekick didn't seem to be accomplishing much.

He wouldn't have expected that. After all, Robin was just a sidekick. What could he possibly do?. But with Robin standing as the only help available, it was only natural to blame him for just not being as good as the real thing.

People were looking to Gordon and his like for some kind of answer, some sort of solution, seeking salvation where there was none to be found. Gordon had no answers. So far, nobody had been able to breach the shield, there had been no contact with the outside world.

Gordon knew nothing of the escaped birds, though many had reported dead birds at the edges of the shield, most of which were swiftly charred to piles of ash by the electric field. He had no way of knowing that some of those birds had gotten out. To the best of his knowledge, there was no way out.

The city was trapped with its own very limited resources, suffocating itself. And panic wasn't solving anything. But people were scared, so scared they were angry. He understood them, but could do little to reassure them, or even control them. Things were fast getting out of hand.

Gotham's police department was not meant to handle the entire city going berserk all at once. In fact, sometimes it didn't seem very well equipped for any sort of crime at all.

The city of Gotham was considered by some to be an open wound festering with corruption, infected with each of the seven deadly sins so bad that they'd had to come up with subcategories. Daylight belonged to the politicians striding about in their suits and ties, telling each other falsehoods which were later misquoted for the general public's ears. But the night... that belonged to the darkest symptoms of the disease. The ones who wounded the city not with works and inaction (or improper action), but by tearing at its very heart with dirty, clawing hands.

Yet it now became apparent that the criminals were just the symptom of a much larger disease. All these people had only their own welfare on their minds, and maybe those they cared about, but they weren't about to stop and think about things rationally. Instead they found a wall to beat themselves against, and refused to stop even when they started to bleed. All it took was a little bit of pressure to expose the unsightly truth beneath the thin veil. It was frightening, disheartening and repulsive to be forced to recognize that humanity was such a violent thing at its core, driven steadily by fierce emotions run wild.

It was hard to guess what Robin could possibly do about it, how the semblance of normality might be restored. But Gordon had come to expect that things would stabilize. He'd been at this for too long to let a little madness like this get the better of him. Sure, he was upset now, but he was wise enough to know that all of this would blow over, that things would continue for better or worse.

He wondered if most of Gotham was like that. If, even underneath all the feral rage and terror, there was a grain of sanity, some corner of the mind devoted to the knowledge that everything would go on, perhaps not as before, or as wanted. He guessed maybe not.

* * *

"Holy-" Kid Flash broke off abruptly, leaving the sentence incomplete.

He took in the pile of dead birds near where Superboy stood, and rapidly absorbed the implication before Superboy even said anything to fill him in. The rest of the Team were a step behind him, both literally and figuratively. They saw the birds, but realized only where they had come from.

"How did they get through the shield?," Artemis wondered, kneeling down to take a closer look at the birds, at once disgusted and fascinated by them.

"Why are they dead?," Miss Martian asked, keeping a distance from the birds.

"They look as though they were burned," Aqualad commented dryly.

"You're not far off," Kid Flash said, looking from corpses to the shield and back again "looks like the electrical field fried them."

"But how did they get through?," Superboy demanded "the shield's solid."

"I can't believe I missed it. How could I have been so blind?," Kid Flash was looking closer at the barrier, his eyes seeming to be full of wonder "it's so obvious."

"What is?," Artemis asked, one hand resting irritably on her hip.

"It's not a shield at all; it's a filter."

"Come again?."

"That's why there's such a strong electrical field. To ward people off before they even touch the filter. It's blocking radio and air and stuff like that, but a person could get through fine, if not for the electrical field. It's not a shield for the shield at all, it's a shield for the filter. This changes everything. _Everything_."

"How does this change anything?," Superboy asked, baffled.

"I was thinking the field was an extension of the barrier, another layer of security but the same in principle. But it's not. There's probably more than one device as a result. My guess is the shield generator is somewhere at the edge, directly in contact with the filter, not the device powering it."

"So what?."

"The field is following the energy patterns of the filter. If Robin shuts it off, what do you think is going to happen?," Kid Flash didn't wait for a response, and began to pace "maybe nothing. But that would be too easy. In all likelihood, the shield would short circuit, and seek another energy source to cling to. It could blow up half- or all -of Gotham, and everyone inside it. It could be worse than that. This thing might be radioactive. This is bad. Really bad."

The Team watched helplessly as Kid Flash paced around, absorbed in the news and consumed by a new worry. Robin was good with technology, but had no way of knowing that this wasn't a shield generator he was dealing with. Since it was man-made, under who knew what kind of specifications, it might be impossible to recognize it for what it was until too late.

Robin might well destroy the entire city- and himself -while trying to save it.


	8. Chapter 7

_09:17 AM_

Kid Flash and The Flash had made a complete circle around the dome, but neither had seen any sign of a shield generator. Wherever it was, it wasn't visible from their side.

"It's got to be near the edge of the filter, it's just got to," Kid Flash murmured.

"If it is, we can't find it," Flash replied, giving his former protege a sober look "it looks like finding it is up to Robin, just like finding the device powering the filter. There's nothing we can do from this side."

Kid Flash swore, and kicked a rock into oblivion, balling his hands into fists.

"I hate feeling so helpless!," he burst out, and swore again "all the speed and brains in the world and I can't do a damn thing!. The one person who can is only human!. It's not fair!."

"Don't sell Robin short," Flash said, rebuking him gently "you know better. He was trained by Batman, who can hold his own with the best of them. You know better than I do what Robin's capable of, especially when he gets pushed against a wall. He's not stupid, or weak."

"I didn't mean to say he was," Kid Flash retorted defensively "it's just... just... what if he needs us?. It's one thing for him to be alone with Batman, but he's got nobody. He's all on his own."

"Bats are natural loners," Flash reminded him, trying to lend the boy some comfort "I'm sure Robin's just as capable of handling the situation as anyone."

Kid Flash didn't fail to notice that Flash didn't suggest Robin would be fine. That would have been too much of a lie. Even as it was, Flash was only trying to quiet the panicked rage rising in KF. It was easy, so terribly easy, to forget that the Team was composed largely of mere children.

They were heroes, yes, and incredibly powerful as such, but they still had their limits. These were teenagers, prone to emotional outburst and bouts of instability. They knew the reality of death, yet their attachments to those they held dear ran painfully deep. They still had a sense of immortality about them, even though intellectually they were aware of their vulnerability.

And Robin was not only a mere human, but also the youngest of all of them.

Flash knew that might be a major factor in whether they would emerge victorious at the end of the day. But he wasn't sure if that would be in their favor or against them. Kids tended to be bright and optimistic and almost unbelievably clever, but they were also prone to seeing things only one way, and giving up without seeking alternatives.

Flash knew also that each passing minute brought them a step closer to failure. Not only because the air was going to run out, but because Robin inevitably would as well. Sooner or later, exhaustion would set in. At that point, Robin would be more than likely to start making mistakes.

And any mistake at this point could prove fatal.

* * *

Up to now, the panic of people had been the worst of it. But now the in-city generators were failing. Cut off from outside sources, there wasn't enough to go around. First to fail was the electricity for the general public. Only those with their own back up generators were still well off. But those people were the ones sequestered in their homes, waiting for this to blow over.

Hospitals and the like had emergency backup power, but there was some question as to how long that would last. Of course, anything battery powered was fine, for the moment. And anything which generated its own power would work indefinitely.

But there was a portion of the populace who'd been keeping calm only by watching news channels. When the television went out, a new stream of panicked people hit the streets and came beating down the doors of Gotham PD.

The city was getting cold, but the police station itself felt like a sauna. The air wasn't moving and there were a lot of heated bodies. Everyone was actively working to solve some problem or the other, basically sticking a band aid on it and waiting for a cure.

Police at the station were trying to coordinate, others were at hospitals trying to help maintain order there. Many were at riot sites, trying to get things back under control. But it was a losing battle, even with firemen and paramedics pitching in and doing their part as well.

All they could do was try to hold back the flood, keep on plugging the leaks and hope the dam didn't break before something was finally done.

There were people working on it, but Gordon knew that the real hope lay with Robin. And that, it seemed to him, was virtually no hope at all.

* * *

Artemis was back indoors, watching the news, wishing she could do something worthwhile. All the waiting was beginning to drive her just a little nuts. The television wasn't helping. It was just a rehash of the initial broadcast, with new reporters and interview subjects sharing their thoughts on the situation.

_Their thoughts,_ Artemis thought coldly, _well if they care so much, why aren't they trying to fix the problem instead of going on television to talk about it?. We don't need to raise awareness, we need someone to take action, to help resolve this. Talking won't do anybody any good._

Authorities were leaving no comment. They knew not what was going on, nor who was doing it or how to stop it, so they tried to placate the general public with soothing words which meant nothing. Meaningless babble, calming only if you let the monotony of the words lull you into a bored stupor.

Perhaps Artemis' judgment was clouded by her emotions. Perhaps not.

Aqualad joined her after a time, and they exchanged glances. Both knew the futility of watching the news, and that they were useless here at least for now. There was nothing they could do except for wait. Wait, and hope. And that wasn't much.

"Robin is no fool," Aqualad said, seeming to be speaking almost to himself "there is none better suited to save Gotham than he. If there is a way to do so, he will find it. We must be ready then, for I fear that the mere deactivation of the shield will not be the end of it."

"Of course not," Artemis responded "only someone who's bought this media bull would believe that. The shield is a symptom only. The real illness is whoever's behind it. We're not doing anything to catch them right now. Nothing at all."

"There is nothing we can do," Aqualad told her "I have heard the recorded demands myself. The voice was distorted, there was no way to recognize or trace it, even with the advanced technology of the Justice League at our disposal."

"I hate this," Artemis said quietly, forcing her voice low, refusing to let her feelings out "I hate the waiting. The helplessness. The not knowing. I hate all of it. This is not how we operate. This is not what we do. We're supposed to be heroes, bringers of justice. And here we sit, watching television."

"We have little other choice. To do otherwise would leave us potentially unavailable should we be needed, or put us in the way of those who can now act. We can do only what we can. And right now, all we can do is wait. We do not have to like it, but that is how things are."

"You're right," Artemis said with a reluctant sigh "but that doesn't make me feel any better."

"I was not aware you joined this Team to feel good," Aqualad replied neutrally, raising an eyebrow.

For a moment, Artemis was tempted to snap at him, to tell him off. But she stopped before she began, biting her tongue as the reality of his words sunk in. It was easy to go out and fight. That's what she was trained for, what she wanted to do more than anything. There was nothing special in taking action. This was a true test of her. This was something really hard for her to do.

Where most people seemed afraid of action, preferring to sit and talk and express their opinions and share their feelings, Artemis was just the opposite. She wanted to be doing something, anything besides sitting here. But there was nothing for it, it was here she should be, and so here she would stay.

She didn't wish to switch places with Robin, and she was perhaps entirely alone in that. Whatever was going on inside Gotham, it couldn't be half as bad as this waiting. Robin, driven as he was, might well go absolutely insane sitting here and doing nothing.

Artemis wouldn't wish it on him. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.

* * *

"Shall we continue?."

The question hung in the air of the dimly lit room, holding unanswered for a seeming eternity while the questioner stood fidgeting before the sleek metal desk of his employer, faced with the high back of the desk chair while the chair's occupant stared at the many large screens which were relaying what cameras positioned at strategic places recorded.

A pale hand stroked a great Angora rabbit sitting on the wide right arm of the chair, its nose twitching at nothing in particular, the only feature visible beneath the weighty fluff of its coat.

"Soon," the word was spoken as if from across a vast distance, both in space and time, a gnarled and cracked voice betraying its owner's age "they are almost ready."

"Yes sir," the man standing in front of the desk fidgeted some more, his eyes going from the rabbit to the screens and back again, nervousness overtaking decorum.

"Careful," the hand paused on the rabbit, then resumed stroking "your humanity is showing."

The nervous man swallowed, and took a steadying breath. This was just a job, a job like any other. He just wanted to get it over with, get paid and get out. He'd worked for madmen before, and knew there was a knack to it, or rather an art. He thought he'd mastered it, but time and again it came to him that these were dangerous men, men whom he should know better than to get involved with.

But the work was interesting and the pay was always good, so it was hard to argue.

"Look at them," the person in the chair instructed, the ancient voice was hard as steel "scrambling about, fleeing and fighting. All it took was the smallest nudge and the city came crashing down."

"Yes sir," the standing man replied, his voice level.

This was the normal dialogue of madmen, he knew that. It was unsettling, but there was nothing new in it. He'd heard the speech before, and often was tempted to quote it for himself, to see how it sounded.

The high-backed desk chair was a dark maroon, leather, or more likely faux leather. It was wing-backed, for no readily apparent reason. It sat strangely behind the featureless metal desk, seeming not to belong to the sparsely furnished and starkly decorated room.

The room was that of a techie, computers, cables and screens everywhere. But it was a huge room, and well-organized, by someone with an eye for detail and appearance. The cables were all confined to their areas, the floor was clear and free of microchips and little screws, all of those were arranged carefully on tables around the room.

But the chair, bizarre as it was, seemed to belong to an aristocrat, one who paid others to do work while they themselves looked on, petting whatever peculiar animal they had for a pet.

It was weird, that's what it was. Weird and unsettling.

"I wonder, what will kill them first?. Our little device?," the hand rubbed behind the rabbit's ears speculatively "I think not. I think they shall destroy themselves. But first, I believe they will destroy the only one who might be able to save them. They shall destroy their savior, and then themselves. Yes, I do think that is what will happen. Don't you agree?."

The man did not answer. He didn't feel as though he could. To agree would be to put himself on a path to a place he didn't really want to go. To disagree would likely result in his being shot. He didn't have to see the revolver hidden in his employer's sleeve to know it was there.

That wrinkled old hand petting the rabbit was deft, lightning quick. Each stroke was precisely measured, every move maximized the pleasure for both the rabbit and the owner of that hand. There was nothing frail or faulty about that hand.

Silence was the only safe response. Safety. What a crock that was.

The man looked again to the screens, which showed scenes of Gotham, now in the process of being torn down by its own people. Panic in the streets. The blood was already flowing, the wounded filled hospitals, and the dead probably lined hallways. There was no telling how bad it really was, because the scenes were so quick to change their form. Constant motion, random acts, senseless violence brought on by fear-induced rage. Chaos.

Perhaps, he thought, the Lords of Chaos were not so mythical as he'd always thought after all. Perhaps there was one here even now, embodied by this old man with his rabbit. Maybe. Or maybe this was just what it looked like: a crazy old man living out a last fantasy before he died of whatever terminal illness he undoubtedly had.

Maybe. But it didn't really matter, did it?. No, not to him. Not really.

He was going to get paid, regardless of whether or not Gotham fell. One more fanatic appeased, one more check in his own bank account. What difference did it make who this guy really was, or what the real motivation behind this was?.

None. None at all.


	9. Chapter 8

_10:00 AM_

Two hours of fruitless searching had finally yielded results, though not of the kind Robin had been hoping for. About six levels down, he'd found what had once been an intersection of tunnels. Most of them had been blocked off, their ceilings collapsed. Except one, which was itself shielded and guarded by the same electric field as the shield around Gotham.

Robin had been able to see the device beyond, but had no way of reaching it. He couldn't very well blast the tunnels, he'd bring the whole place down on his head. He'd spent some time looking at the device, trying to get a good view of it.

But the splash of crimson electric current made it hard to see. And, every time he got close to it, the whiplashes of electricity would come after him, driving him back and threatening to kill him then and there. He couldn't get a good look at the device, no matter how hard he'd tried.

Eventually, he'd had to give it up. He needed to go back to the batcave, regroup with the others, see if KF had any ideas on how to get past this blockade, as well as give himself some time to think the problem over. There was a solution, there had to be.

The close oppression of the tunnels gradually gave way to the open stillness of the world above. The air had grown colder, and now seemed to taste stale, just as the air below was. It was colder above ground than below, there was nothing to confine warmth out here, it just rose up to the ceiling of the filter.

But that was far from the worst of it. Before reaching the surface, Robin suddenly had the sense that something was terribly wrong up ahead. He paused in the darkness, uneasy as he had not been before. Something told him that he didn't really want to go up there.

He shifted from one foot to the other indecisively. He had to go up there, he had to get out. Was there a better way to go about it?. But no, there was just the subway entrance, a straight staircase up to the outside. No way of concealing one's self.

Whatever it was, Robin was going to have to meet it head on. Assuming that it was an enemy, which he felt unsure of. A rumble, as of thunder, sounded overhead. He didn't like that sound, which was rapidly followed by the thin wail of sirens. Bad sounds.

Robin eased his way up the stairs, hugging to the left, protecting his uninjured arm as well as using his body to keep it out of view of any he might encounter on his way up. His left hand rested near his utility belt, ready to grab a smoke pellet or birdarang as needed.

He'd had to rearrange his equipment to account for his broken arm, which was virtually useless. Though there were pockets all around his utility belt, it had a certain bias toward the right, his favored arm, with the equipment he used most being easily accessible from that side. He'd had to switch everything around. He could reach anywhere on the belt with his left hand, of course, but fractions of seconds often counted and it took longer to get into some pockets than others.

As it turned out, Robin needn't have bothered. The danger wasn't to him specifically. People ran up and down sidewalks, some out in the street, dodging among cars whose horns were all blaring futilely. Manic, everyone was manic. They were breaking into buildings, mostly stores, smashing windows, stealing supplies they normally would have bought, most of them with no idea what was important and what wasn't. They were preparing for an apocalypse.

They shouldn't have bothered. This would all be over shortly, and no stock of spam and bottled water was going to help.

It felt strange to emerge in the middle of all this bustle and go virtually unnoticed. Robin wasn't supposed to be out in the open like this. Not that he'd had much choice. And it seemed this area had been abandoned earlier. Something had obviously changed.

Of course. People had stopped trying to flee, because there was nowhere to go.

It was amazing how quickly they changed from one strategy to another, even without any training or coercion. It was all useless, of course, but still impressive. Downright alarming was the mob mentality, as people lashed out against their neighbors to protect whatever treasures they clung to.

Men in business suits, women in heels, vagrants in rags and teens in T-shirts and jeans, all were doing the same thing, taking part in what seemed like a case of mass insanity. Every one reacting instinctively, just wanting to survive.

Robin's mind flashed back to that moment, two weeks ago, when his own mind had shut out all thought, leaving him only with instinct. The instinct to survive. It wasn't rational, conformed to no type of reason. It was action without thought, necessary but often misguided to the point of doing more harm than good. That's what was happening here.

The instinct to survive, to fight or flee, was only useful if you knew how to do any of those things. It was almost funny, tragic but funny, to realize that this entire city was wholly ignorant. Not one person out here knew the first thing about survival. How ever had they lived so long?.

These people who needed warning labels to tell them not to put knives in a toaster, or to use their hair dryer in the shower. How did they make it moment to moment?. How did they even manage to get up in the morning?. It was no surprise that what was happening now made no sense and did nothing to accomplish anything. These were people who'd stick a fork in a light socket if there wasn't a warning label for that.

Robin felt a wash of protectiveness. These people needed all the help they could get. Stupid as they were, they were no less human for it. No less alive, no less important. Important to what?. Well, best to leave that for scholars. Right at the moment, Robin had better things to do than ponder humankind.

As he was about to make for a rooftop, Robin caught a motion in the corner of his eye. He didn't know what it was, or why it attracted his attention. After all, there was activity all around. But he turned to look, and knew all at once why he'd been drawn to the motion.

A family of five had darted across the street, trusting a slight break in the traffic. In doing so, the youngest child had dropped her doll. Once across, the parents were distracted with whatever it was they were trying to do. With three young kids, it was hard to keep track of all of them. The little girl escaped notice and was going back for her dolly.

It was an old story, one that didn't always have a happy ending. Robin didn't bother to measure the distance, to guess whether he could sprint that far, or get there fast enough, before the whirl of traffic swallowed the girl whole, only to spit her out after breaking her apart and taking her life.

He just went. He ran low, and bowled over a number of people, even jumping a small crowd by leaping onto the back of a bench and then flipping over them. It took precious seconds to make it from subway entrance to where the girl was. In all of that, not one person noticed what Robin had already processed and decided to act on. Nobody noticed the girl, not even her parents were aware of her absence.

Robin dove into the street, swept the girl into his arms and rolled the rest of the way across, his momentum carrying him right into the front of a building, which he slammed into hard enough to knock the breath out of his chest.

Nobody noticed that at first either. They were so absorbed in their panic that not a person on the street took note of what would normally be considered a miraculous and timely rescue.

It gave Robin the time he needed to get his breath. He was holding the girl too tightly, and she was thrashing and hitting him with her tiny fists, whaling on his head with her battered doll. He didn't let her go, knowing that she'd run for her parents, who were across the street.

By this point, they had noticed their daughter's absence and were looking about frantically, calling her name even though their voices were drowned in the surrounding din. Then one of their kids pulled on his father's pants leg and pointed across the street.

By this time Robin had regained his sense of time and place. He waited for a slight break in the traffic and then darted across, expertly dodging as a red sports car seemed to rocket from nowhere as though Hellbent on taking him out.

Only then did he put the girl down. She immediately ran to her mother and wrapped chubby child arms around the woman's legs. Her mother reached down and picked her up, clutching her as though she would never let her daughter go again.

"You're an angel, Robin," the woman said tearfully, but the masked boy shook his head.

"You should all go home. There's no point in being out here in all of this. All you'll do out here is lose your lives. Take your family where it's safe and stay there. If not for your sake, do it for your children. Get out of this madness while you're still in one piece."

He turned away from them and walked away quickly, before they could see him shaking. He'd poured absolutely every bit of energy he had into that sprint. Fear had caught him in that moment, he'd let it overwhelm him. Now he felt drained, now his mind forced him to face images of what could have been. There'd been no time for that in the moment, but now he saw how it could have gone differently.

He could have been too late. The girl could have been crushed under a wheel. Or he could have died with her in the street. So easily could it have all gone differently. He was shaking from the aftermath, terror gripping him now that he'd let it in. He was dizzy with it.

He made his way to an alley where he was sick behind a dumpster.

Then, feeling better, he went on. He'd been willing to give his life for that little girl, but it had been returned to him, and so now he must go on, must continue. It was more than his duty, it was his privilege granted to him because he was still alive, and because he was still capable.

* * *

"Now it's time," the rabbit man said from his chair "flip that switch over there."

His employee hurried to obey him before he became impatient. The switch in question was a trigger for a program designed by the old gentleman for just this occasion. It allowed him to override every single news channel, to take them over and display his own recorded video, giving them the highlights of what was happening to Gotham. Only the news channels, of course. Anything else would be silly.

After all, the people who were still watching the golf channel would just turn the TV off if they saw what was happening to Gotham. They weren't the curious types. But the people who watched the news... well they were already glued to their screens anyway. They'd watch anything, no matter how tragic or inane it might be. They'd already watched for hours while reporters prattled senselessly and politicians gave their misguided opinions and famous psychologists were interviewed to try and explain why this was happening as though it truly mattered.

Across the country, people were made wholly aware of the chaos which reigned within the walls of Gotham. They were subjected to humanity in the raw, uncut and uncensored.

"Let them stew over that for a time," the rabbit man said, stroking his bunny "let them wonder how I did it, and try to put a stop to this revelation. And when they've exhausted themselves with that, then it will be time for me to explain why this is happening. Yes."


	10. Chapter 9

_11:03 AM_

"Hey, you might want to look at this," one of the Wayne Enterprises men stuck his head out the door.

The Team had gathered for a conference, albeit an unnecessary one. It was a way of killing time. Miss Martian was just listening on the mind link, since she needed to stay where she'd managed to contact Robin so that she'd know when he got back in range.

The man disappeared back inside. Aqualad, Artemis and Superboy followed him, but KF and Flash stayed outside, still working on the problem at hand.

Even though they couldn't do anything out here, they could think through a variety of scenarios and thus have information ready should Robin require it, and should the time come when they themselves were able to act.

The rest of the Team went inside and saw the corrupted broadcast. It was worse than they'd imagined from Robin's off-hand description. Worse than seemed reasonable. People were acting like the sky was falling. Which wasn't far off from accurate, truth be known. Some of the footage was from much earlier in the morning, some was just a few minutes old. It all looked hand-picked.

The incident with the Robin and the girl in the street had been carefully omitted, though many events surrounding that one were included. The impact of the crowd's total ignorance was lost somewhat because nobody watching knew that there was a girl being rescued in the midst of this and all of these people were totally oblivious to it.

"What the hell?," Artemis said aloud, shaking her head.

"What's wrong with those people?," Superboy growled "don't they know they're just making a bad situation worse?."

"More importantly, how and why are we being allowed to bear witness?," Aqualad wondered "we know for a fact that no transmission aside from the mind link can get through the barrier. Though I am more concerned with the why than the how."

"I bet Robin could trace this back to the source, no problem," Artemis said after a few minutes, when she'd recovered from the first shock of it.

"You would doubtless lose that bet," Aqualad replied "though I will contact the Watchtower and ask them to try. I fear we are dealing with one far more clever than I first imagined."

"You call this clever?," Superboy grunted "I, for one, call it sick."

"Agreed, but my point stands even so," Aqualad told him "sickness of mind does not necessarily preclude brilliance."

Superboy made a face, but his expression conveyed more than disgust. He conceded the point. He'd been at this too long to assume all enemies were fools. Too many of them had come too close to defeating him and the Team as well, and not just with a show of force either.

Not that they were going to see it, at least not any time soon, but the worst was yet to come. A security camera would catch the whole thing in detail, but the old man didn't get around to reviewing the hacked camera until after the event had already unfolded.

* * *

It happened without warning. One minute Robin was stopping three thugs from attacking an old lady, and the next he found himself beset by what seemed for a moment to be vicious zombies. The truth was far more appalling.

"You!," a man had shouted "this is your doing!. You and that Bat!. This is all because of you and your insane war against people like you!."

Robin would later conclude that the man had been comparing Batman to the villains he fought, and equating Robin to the Caped Crusader. But he didn't absorb that at the time.

Whether it was a form of madness, a result of heightened emotions or just pure group response, Robin was all at once under assault by the very people he'd hoped to protect. And not just three or four. He was literally buried under bodies, all scratching and clawing, trying to get at him.

He was being torn at, being crushed. He couldn't see, he couldn't breath, all he could hear were inarticulate screams of unbridled fury. Fury directed at himself. He didn't know why, and didn't care. All he knew was that he was being attacked. They were trying to kill him. And they were succeeding.

Of all the things he had anticipated, this was not one of them. He had no plan to defend himself against this. His first instinct was to shield himself, to curl up in a ball to protect himself. Easier said than done with seemingly dozens of writhing bodies on top of you. Failing in that, he began to thrash wildly, with no real intent other than to give himself room to maneuver.

But it didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. He feared that this new enemy was proving to be too much for him. With a thrill of horror, he realized that the people on top of the pile were actually assaulting one another just to get to him. It made no sense. Robin wanted _out_!.

Pain flared through him as he was scratched, punched, kicked and even bitten. His own thrashing caused his skin to abrade on the harsh concrete. But he didn't care. As breathing became more and more difficult, he felt the beginnings of panic welling up inside.

He fought it back, knowing it would only bring about his own demise, which was exactly the thing he now sought to avoid.

He altered his thrashing somewhat. Instead of trying to get free, he just wanted to work one arm loose, just a little, only enough to reach his belt...

Easier said than done. He was working blind, he couldn't see anything to speak of. Fabric colors, flashes of that damn purple sky, gray and black ground, faces contorted into something hideous by mindless rage, glimmers and glimpses, all going by too fast to process.

Then, all of a sudden, he had his hand on the smoke pellets. Now he had them, he wasn't sure he'd be able to do anything with them. You had to throw them. Or at least crack them. Yeah, that would work. He took one between his thumb and forefinger and snapped it. Smoke clouded into the air.

Screams and screeches replaced the shouts and snarls, and suddenly people were leaping away as though they were burned, blinking and coughing and assaulting one another blindly. Robin twisted clear of the last few determined ones and made for the nearest fire escape.

He didn't slow in his frantic flight until he was several rooftops away, and wheezing more than panting. The fight had exhausted him, and he was in more pain than he even realized. He felt battered and broken all over, and couldn't seem to get his breath. Each time he tried to breathe deeply, it hurt so bad he was reduced to coughing, which only made the pain worse. He'd been hurt. Hurt a lot.

He sat on the roof, trembling and coughing and sometimes moaning, trying to regain some of his strength by resting for a few minutes. He still didn't understand what had happened, and a kind of confused fear settled in and he began to tremble.

At last his breathing steadied, becoming easier because his body wasn't so oxygen starved. At that point, he was able to better assess his injuries. Taking stock of them seemed to make the pain sharper, but also more bearable because he knew what it was.

He knew he could easily have been killed. Even totally clueless people were able to kill within seconds, given large enough numbers and enough incentive. As it was, he was mostly battered and bruised. A few cracked ribs, and his cast seemed to have taken damage, leaving his arm in agony. He could taste blood in his mouth, someone had split his lip and he'd bitten his own tongue at some point. He was dirty, covered in bruises and scraps of various kinds.

But, all things considered, he wasn't too bad off, even if his ears were still ringing and his head spinning and a new wash of pain was coming over him each time his heart beat.

"Well that was uncool," he said aloud to himself, then coughed again.

He spat blood out of his mouth, feeling the sting of the cut on his lip as he did so. More blood seemed to collect in his mouth almost at once, and he spat that out too. It still tasted of copper after that, but it couldn't be helped. His nose was bleeding too, and he couldn't breathe through it.

It took some doing to get up without causing undue stress to his wounded body, but he managed it and prepared to continue on his way home, though at a much slower pace than before. He would probably have to stop and catch his breath several times before he could go on, since he couldn't breathe deeply or rapidly at all.

What was it that he'd been thinking when he got up this morning?. Oh yes, that it was going to be boring. Well, that appeared to be the least of his worries. He was a far cry from being bored. In fact, right at the moment, he kind of wished he was bored.

Unfortunately for Robin, it was far from over. A young policeman, drawn by the smoke and screaming, had seen Robin take flight. He didn't recognize the vigilante, only having seen a shape flitting away from a bloodied scene. He ran after the fleeing figure, keeping his eyes on the rooftops.

When Robin got up to get moving again, the policeman below drew a bead on him and fired a shot. He would later regret it, and not only because of who he'd shot, but because it was such a waste. There was no violence being done by Robin at the time he was shot. The policeman should have shouted at him to surrender, if anything. Given the circumstances, he probably should have left well enough alone, or at least taken the time to be sure of who and what his target was.

When a flash of searing pain, like fire only worse, lanced through him, Robin was knocked off his feet with a pained yelp of shock. At once, he tossed a smoke pellet and dove head first off the side of the building, using his grappling hook to swing to the opposite wall, then onto the roof of that building.

This time he didn't stop, even though his shoulder felt as though it were on fire, even though blood ran down his chest, even though his lungs cried out for air, and his ribs screamed in protest. He just kept going, focusing on a singular thought: _Home_. He wanted to go home. That was the only thought left to him. He didn't know what had happened, didn't even realize he'd been shot. All he knew was that everything was chaos, all of it violent, none of it made any sense and he just wanted it to be over and done with. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, and it seemed like nothing mattered except getting home. He just wanted to go home.

* * *

It wasn't only Robin that was being attacked without provocation. Many police officers were assaulted by pedestrians, and vice-versa as panic rose among the younger and less experienced of them. Commissioner Gordon was fast losing control of his men, mostly because he was unable to communicate with them over any distance. The radios had failed.

Gordon, being a shrewd man, had put procedures in place in case they lost contact, but his men were panicky. Those who weren't at first soon were when they found themselves cut off and being attacked by people on the street. Some people tried to help, and found themselves dragged into these skirmishes, sometimes getting doused with pepper spray for their troubles.

And, like Robin, most of these men just wanted to go home, to go to their families and wait for this to blow over. They didn't want to be out here, but they were nonetheless, because it was their job. Even if they were doing it badly, at the very least they were trying.

Just like the people coming after them. Though their actions were erroneous, at the least you could say of them that they were attempting to survive, to defend themselves. That might count for something, though perhaps not very much, all things considered.

* * *

Milo Downy had always known he wanted to be a police officer. Straight out of high school, he'd set himself on that course, in spite of mocking from friends and the doubtful words of his family. He'd known that Gotham PD was exactly where he wanted to be. Regardless of whatever flaws there were in procedure and the corruption which was undoubtedly within the system, Milo still wanted it.

He was still a probationer, he'd only just made it through the Academy. He was young, he was bright, he was capable. And very, very stupid. He knew his mistake almost before he'd even made it, but it was too late to stop the bullet from flying.

He just wanted to die. He'd gotten caught up in the moment, and let his imagination run away with him. He had failed to see what was right in front of him until it was too late.

Badly shaken, he'd done nothing but try to find his partner, who'd left him to his own devices when everything went to Hell. He'd tried to explain what he'd done, but he'd stammered so much that the older man had lost all patience with him and told him to go home if he was too scared to do his job.

Both abashed and frustrated, Milo had returned to the station. By that time, he'd regained enough control of himself to speak properly. Lost in his private world, he'd run headlong into the police commissioner. He stammered his way through an apology, and then rushed straight into an explanation.

Commissioner Gordon tried to fend him off, to redirect him. He was very busy, after all. But Milo was determined this time, determined to tell the story in full, or at least what he knew of it. It wasn't much, since he had only seen the aftermath.

It was only his ending sentence that finally got Gordon's undivided attention.

"I think I've killed Robin."


	11. Chapter 10

_12:17 PM_

"_M'gann, you there?."_

"_Robin!. Where have you been?. You sound awful."_

Robin smiled inwardly. Leave it to Miss M to hear pain even in his mental voice. He'd returned to the batcave, blacked out briefly, and then immediately called to her.

"_Yo, Rob,"_ Kid Flash interrupted _"you do realize we're in a bit of a time crunch, don't you?," _he went on without pause or prompting _"well at least you didn't deactivate the device, that's something anyway. We've got major problems on that end. And on yours, from what Aqualad tells me. Gotham's Greatest Hits are being broadcast publicly. Emphasis on the 'hit' part."_

"_Very funny," _Robin said, too weary to find the humor _"I couldn't deactivate the device, even if I tried to. It's guarded by the same energy sentries that are on the shield itself."_

"_Speaking of,"_ Kid Flash said, then went on to explain the truth about the barrier, relating the escape of the birds earlier on.

Robin listened mutely, suddenly absurdly glad there had been an energy shield barring his way. Otherwise he probably would have tried, and succeeded, in deactivating the filtration device. And that would have been an extremely bad thing for all concerned.

"_What took you so long anyway?,"_ Kid Flash asked.

"_The device is underground. Several levels down. It took awhile to find it,"_ Robin replied impassively.

Having regained something of himself since reaching the cave, he was now trying to patch himself up. The bullet had just missed anything important, neatly taking a chunk of flesh out of his shoulder, but then going right on by. It had bled, quite a lot actually, but that was less bad than some other things.

However, applying a bandage to the area was easier said than done. It was his left shoulder, no way he could effectively put gauze there with his left hand. At least, not carefully. It was going to be awkward. Even aside from his casted arm, there were also the broken ribs, which protested any such movement. But that was the least of it.

Applying alcohol to clean the wound wrung a cry from him. A cry which transmitted mentally as well.

"_Robin!,"_ Miss Martian shouted, her mental voice full of fear.

"_I'm alright, I'm alright. Just gimme a sec,"_ he cried out again, and then once more as he was applying the bandage _"I'm alright,"_ he repeated, gritting his teeth.

"_You don't sound alright,"_ Kid Flash told him _"what's going on with you anyhow?."_

"_Somebody shot me, that's all. I'm __**fine**__."_

"_That is a lie, and we all know it,"_ Aqualad threw his voice in for the first time _"you are not fine. However, that is a moot point at this juncture."_

"_Thank you,"_ Robin almost spat, in too much pain to sound anything but tired and angry_ "so where do we go from here, KF?. Any idea where this shield generator of yours is?."_

"_It's got to be somewhere near the filter's perimeter. Or anyway, that's what I thought. But if there's a second one that's not being supported by a filter... did you see more than one device?."_

"_No, but I couldn't get a very good look at the chamber it was in. Couldn't even get close to it."_

There was a momentary silence. Kid Flash must be thinking. Robin was careful not to make a sarcastic remark about that. KF was notorious for doing, and then thinking. It was a habit which would not serve here. So Robin waited.

It came to him that he was very, very thirsty. Tired, weak and still dizzy, Robin was loath to climb the stairs. He noticed the tea tray, abandoned since the morning and got up cautiously, painfully to see if there was anything left in it. There was. The idea of room-temperature tea was a bit revolting, but it was better than nothing, so Robin drank it. He was grateful that Alfred hadn't had time to retrieve the tray. Alfred.

What had he been doing before he was attacked?. How was he now?. Was he awake, perhaps wondering about Robin now?. He might be worried. Robin shook his head. There was no time for such sentiment. He drained the teapot then staggered over to a chair where he eased himself down.

His eyes seemed to close themselves, he was so tired. Blood loss tended to do that to you, and so did having to fight for your life. His adrenalin had long since failed him, he wasn't sure he had any other resource to draw on. He was just so tired, he wanted to sleep. That's all he wanted to do. Sleep.

"_Okay,"_ the voice in his head startled Robin back into wakefulness _"I'm thinking this device is designed totally differently from how it should be."_

"_Meaning... what exactly?," _Robin was shocked by his own question.

He should be able to figure it out on his own. A single hint was all he usually needed to catch on. But the words KF said just sort of sloshed about in Robin's consciousness and refused to have any meaning. They flopped like a dying fish, pointless and spastic.

"_Well, we're assuming this is some kind of prototype, designed by some crazy scientist. So far, Flash and I have been thinking about this in scientific terms, with safety margins and the like. We're not thinking crazy enough. What if the shield device and the filter device are one and the same?. Two things merged into one. Completely unsafe, totally wrong, but an idiot would do it. Or someone with a death wish. Or... at the very least-"_

Robin caught on and finished the thought Kid Flash didn't dare to.

"_They intended to destroy Gotham all along."_

"_Yeah. But... Rob, that means the device itself _is_ shielded. You can't get to it."_

Robin felt like banging his head against a wall. Well, to be more accurate, he felt like he was _already_ beating his head against a wall. It seemed like there simply wasn't a solution to this.

He was tired, he was hurt, and he was no closer to accomplishing his goal. Not even a little bit closer. In fact, all that running around seemed to have only proved that it couldn't be done. Proved that he could not save Gotham, no matter what he did.

He was halfway tempted to just call it quits and sit in the basement waiting for it to be over.

An image flitted through his mind, brief and unclear. He tried to grab onto it, but it eluded him. There _was_ an answer. There had to be. There was always a way, always a way out. It was never over, not until the final applause. He allowed himself to smile at his own memory.

"_Oh yes I can,"_ he said, responding only many seconds later to KF's earlier statement_ "I just have to figure out how. That's all."_

"_Rob... I'm sorry, but I'm telling you, there's no way..."_

"_If you're not going to be helpful, then I suggest you be quiet and let me think,"_ it wasn't often that Robin showed a flash of temper, even less commonly was it unleashed on Kid Flash.

Kid Flash, thus rebuked, fell momentarily into a sullen silence.

* * *

It didn't last long.

Kid Flash felt that Robin's current predicament was largely his own doing, and was still nursing the guilt from weeks ago. Robin had clearly moved on, wanted to do nothing except move forward. KF realized that it would be selfish of him not to at least try and help his friend do just that. He'd hurt Robin once, he couldn't very well do it again. If Robin wanted to go down fighting, who was KF to try and stand in his way?.

"_Alright, I get it,"_ he said _"But if I'm gonna be helpful, I'll need a better description of that device."_

"_I can do you one better,"_ Robin replied brightly _"I can show it to you."_

There was a burst of mental images, like radio static, looking sort of like an old VHS tape rewinding. Neither Kid Flash nor any of the others managed to sort through the images before Robin's mind settled on a picture of the device and surrounding chamber as he'd seen them.

"_Nice,"_ Kid Flash commented.

The object in question looked a bit like a big metal cube with a patchwork of sensors and control panels stuck to it at random. A dull glow made it hard to see properly. It took Kid Flash a moment to realize that it was the shield/filter distorting the image, not Robin's memory.

"_This the only view of it?,"_ Kid Flash asked.

"_Only one tunnel was still open,"_ Robin replied with a sort of mental shrug_ "sorry."_

"_It's fine. Actually, it's kind of weird that we can see anything through the filter. Maybe it's got different settings or something. Don't worry,"_ KF thought brightly, trying to sound out a confidence he didn't feel _"we'll figure this problem out, just like all the others before it."_

But he had his doubts. Would sheer willpower be enough to beat this thing?. It seemed unlikely somehow. But he refused to voice that misgiving, and tried to silence it in himself. He didn't want to think that way. He had to stay positive, to keep moving forward.

For Gotham. And more importantly, for Robin, his best friend.

"_Is it just me, or is that a heaping mess?,"_ Artemis asked.

"_It's a mess alright,"_ Robin answered _"and now I know why. It's not just a prototype, but two melded together. Actually... it honestly looks like the first device was almost entirely built when whoever made it either forgot what they were doing or just suddenly changed their mind."_

"_You know you're right,"_ Kid Flash said, nodding to himself _"it looks exactly like that. Someone who knew what they were doing, then forgot and built something else entirely on top of it. It's not just unfinished, it's unpolished and inconsistent. See that?."_

A section of the image lit up as though a flashlight were shining on it. Everybody drew their focus to that point. It clarified and the detail sharpened, as Robin's memory focused on that part of the image, remembering finer details about it and calling them up.

"_There's absolutely no reason for that bit to be connected like that. It's like an incomplete thought. It's not even doing anything the way it's attached. No inventor adds pointless bits and pieces to their machine. It's a waste of time and resources."_

"_But look at how it's attached,"_ Robin said _"carefully. Very precisely linked up with everything else. As though it was supposed to have a purpose."_

Robin and Kid Flash had, by this point, left the others behind. To the rest of the Team, it really did just look like a mess of metal, cables, wires, control panels and bits of scrap from other mechanical devices. It all looked random and haphazard to them.

"_So what?. Our madman has short-term memory loss?,"_ Artemis asked.

"_Well there's obviously something wrong with him,"_ KF replied, seeming almost defensive, as though Artemis' comment had somehow directly challenged his own observations.

"_No duh. He wants an entire city to suffocate,"_ Artemis reminded him fiercely, not even sure what she was defending against, knowing only that Kid Flash was driving her nuts as usual.

"_Can we focus, please?,"_ Robin interrupted harshly _"I don't really care about who the designer is or what he wants. I just want to-... hello."_

He zoomed in on another portion of the device. Kid Flash whistled.

"_That, ladies and gentlemen, is a receiver,"_ Robin said _"which means someone has the transmitter. Someone can operate this thing remotely."_

"_Looks like you've found your way after all, Rob,"_ Kid Flash commented.

"_Yeah, but look closer. That is one helluva receiver. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it. Guys... I've got an idea about this thing."_

"_Oh, and what's that?,"_ KF wanted to know.

"_I think this receiver is also a transmitter. And I think it's designed to send and receive transmissions through the filter. The operator isn't in Gotham, he's somewhere outside of it. That's how he's jacked into the news channels."_

"_I hate to interrupt, but there's something going on with the TV,"_ Superboy said, speaking for the first time _"seems our mystery man has something he wants to say."_


	12. Interlude

**"_Wouldn't it be dreadful if some day in our own world, at home, men start going wild inside, like the animals here, and still look like men, so that you'd never know which were which."_** -Lucy Pevensie: _Prince Caspian _(C.S. Lewis)

* * *

"_My name is Claros Dho. This name likely means nothing to any of you. Most names of power are unknown until it is too late to do anything to destroy them. This is largely because humanity tends to crush any who show themselves to be superior. Nothing is more frightening to a man than another, better human being. Is it not so?._

_It has been said that power corrupts. But what is corruption really?. It is the powerful crushing the non-powerful, otherwise known as the weak. In this day and age, it is thought and not club which rules the day. Thus it is the knowledgeable who stand upon the ignorant. Is it not so?._

_You no doubt wonder what it is I seek, what I hope to accomplish. This is because you are small minded, weak in the modern sense of the word. It is because I am the one in power here. You have nothing to offer me, though it has been quite amusing to watch you try. Yes, I have heard your words, I have witnessed your mad scurrying about. I have observed while you created among yourselves an image of what I want and who I am. It has all been very entertaining._

_You are all of you quite wrong. I do not want your money, and have no need of your pitiful city. Your politicians misinterpret my motives and your psychologists do not understand my reasons. You are all of you blind, completely without senses, and perhaps cursed to be that way for all time. Yet I cannot help but feel something for you, the idiots of this world, even though I wish it were not so._

_Do not mistake my words. Still the notion in your minds that I believe myself to be a God among men. I am no fool, not as you are. I know I am but human, as are you all. And before you protest, I am aware of the non-humans living in this world. I know of their presence, but I seek not to communicate with them, I wish only to speak with the lesser members of my own kind. This message I send now is for you, for all of you. My time here is at its end, it was but a brief span in terms of eternity even though it was nearly a century. I have seen much in that time, but mostly I have seen the foolishness of humankind._

_Be still and silent, do not wonder at my method. I do not wish you all to die, no indeed. That a city must be sacrificed to open up your eyes is little enough price to pay. Do not mourn them, for they were all fools, the lot of them but selfish maggots of flesh and idiocy. Stop your babbling and look well, for this is the truth of humanity; that savage self you so wish to deny. Look upon it and do not forget..."_

* * *

Here the voice fell silent, and the image of an old man in a maroon leather, wing-backed chair faded away, to be replaced by something else again. It was at this point that the Team saw what had befallen Robin, the events he had neglected to relate to them.

It began with his being thrown from the tall building that morning, surviving only by the barest margin when he managed to catch hold of a helicopter's landing gear. This episode ended, and the next to be shown was Robin peering at the device beneath the city, trying to get at it, in the end leaving in failure.

The next footage had been shown in part earlier, yet now was displayed in its entirety. It was the incident with the girl in the street, the one whom no one save Robin had even noticed. It was a depressing few seconds, seen in slow motion, and with sections of it repeated, so that even the slow-witted among people would be able to see what had happened. In the midst of a crowd, a little girl had almost died, because no one was interested in anything except themselves.

The elderly gentleman reappeared, his image overlayed by Robin holding the girl while she screamed and hit him, trying to escape, not understanding she was being rescued.

* * *

"_This is a so-called hero of Gotham, the vigilante known as Robin. His singular mission has been to save this cesspool called Gotham. His efforts have been in vain, yet he has persisted throughout. Is he too a fool, unaware of the futility of his work?. Doubtful. He is yet an optimist, who sees more value in human life than there truly is._

_See him protect this girl with his very body. She has turned upon him like a rabid dog. What sort of a world is this where even the children are plagued by such foolishness?. She hates him, you can see. A little girl, filled with idiot hatred of one she does not know. She did not see herself in danger, never knew. She will never know. She was set on her course, and is furious that it was altered by one wiser than she. She is angry with the very one who ensured she lived long enough to feel such rage._

_This Boy Wonder, he is a fool among fools, because he knows better. He knows better than to think this is a city worth saving, yet he continues to try. And how does that city repay their foolish friend?."_

* * *

It was then that the footage of the attack on Robin became public knowledge. There seemed no warning, just all of a sudden it was happening. And it wasn't a few seconds either. The fighting went on for agonizing minutes, Robin completely out of view half the time.

It was a writhing mass of bodies, punching, kicking, biting. Mostly each other. They would tear each other apart to attack this one who was no threat to them, for no reason other than because they could.

All of a sudden, a cloud of smoke flew up from the center of the mass, and a lean figure darted clear. The slowed down film revealed the red and black clad figure to be Robin. He scrambled for safety, as the people below turned on one another as though believing one among them had thrown the smoke which now burned their eyes when they opened them and throats when they inhaled.

* * *

"_This is the truth beneath the guise: the plague of humanity. Turning on itself as soon as it is able, provoked into insanity by nothing more than a purple sky. I have done nothing to encourage this. There is no toxin in the air doing this, no threats have been issued; nothing. What these people have done, and continue to do, it is entirely of their own volition._

_This is our proud race, this is our truth. This is what we are. What does it matter whether a sky is purple or blue?. It matters to these people. Do not think it is the threat of death, for this began before anyone knew they were confined or cut off. This is the fear that the sky is falling, that irrational human phobia that our civilization can so easily be brought to its knees. Is it not so?._

_The defender attacked by those he seeks to protect. They in their fear would kill the only one who has even a ghost of a chance at saving them. But even that... that is not the end. For the tide turns again, and shows a supposed protector attempting to destroy that which he should defend."_

* * *

Even though there was no sound, the gunshot still seemed deafening. Robin fell, and was gone, shot down by one of Gotham PD's finest, a red-haired man who looked entirely too young to be wearing anything more than a school uniform.

* * *

"_Defenders destroy one another, the young kill the young. This is not war, country against country, race against race, religion against religion. This is but one city, crowded though it may be. And now it knows of its own doom, yet continues rushing madly forward, intent on bringing death closer even as it seeks to evade its own inevitable demise. Is it not so?._

_You are here to witness the murder of humanity by its own hand. How many do you think shall survive to nightfall?. How many will I kill by my own device?. I suspect very few. Far more will die grasping one another's throats, fighting to the last man because they can. This is humanity. This is our truth."_

* * *

Two women were fighting over something. It looked at first like an intense game of tug-of-war. Both were yelling and weeping, putting their whole being into acquiring the tiny object, a set of car keys. How they'd come to be doing this and why was lost from thought, it's debatable they even knew why they were so desperate to get the keys in the first place.

Suddenly they were grabbing at each other, pulling hair and screeching like banshees. Both fell to the pavement, but there they began to wrestle in earnest. Nearby sat a great black SUV, the car to which the keys belonged. It was inanimate and therefor indifferent, yet it seemed still to be laughing at the fools.

In the violence of the scuffle, the keys slipped unnoticed from hand, to be kicked accidentally by passerby down into a grate, where they were to be lost forever. The two combatants didn't notice.

Another series of images showed a teen vandal spraying graffiti on the front of a white church. The red paint read thus: "Satin iz heer an he purr-pull" which might have been more profound if it were spelled correctly or at least not sprayed onto an empty church.

* * *

The images faded, the parting words ringing in the ears of all who were still watching. Many had turned the gruesome pictures off, they didn't want to know. They didn't want to see. They either could not, or would not, for whatever reason, watch this happen.

Robin had seen through the eyes of his comrades, and they could feel an emotion boiling to the surface, though it was at first unclear what it was. The feeling was so wild, the emotion so hot that it mentally scalded. And then Robin gave voice to it and they knew it for what it was.

"_I don't care how you do it. But find this man. Find this man, and stop him. He dares to use me this way!. He dares to make me look like a pitiful and helpless child!. I will not stand for that!. I will __**not**__ be a pawn in this game of his!. Stop him!. Stop him!."_

He stopped speaking, but the waves of emotion kept crashing against the shores of their minds, almost painful to feel. Never had his mind felt like this.

And then it was clear. Robin was furious. Furious beyond any and all words.

* * *

"_My name is Claros Dho, and you are the destroyer of worlds. Is it not so?."_


	13. Chapter 11

_01:03 PM_

"Claros Dho?. Who the hell is that?," Kid Flash wondered aloud.

"Don't look at me," Artemis snapped, crossing her arms "how would I know?."

"I wasn't looking at you," Kid Flash returned evenly, his thoughts too much occupied for verbal sparring _"Yo, Rob, you recognize this guy?."_

"_Not by name. Face looks familiar, but I can't place it,"_ came the mental reply.

The flood of anger had faded somewhat, Robin had pushed it to the back of his thoughts. This was no time to be throwing a tantrum. But the Team had felt the white-hot rage, knew it was still there even though it was temporarily silenced. They knew also that Robin did not often give himself to anger.

None of them said anything about it, but they didn't have to. They had just gotten a harsh reminder that Robin was as much a person as any of them, that he was just a thirteen-year-old boy with his own weaknesses. Only human. That seemed to be the topic of the day.

"_You've done your part, Robin. Now we shall do ours,"_ Aqualad assured him, voicing a certainty he did not feel.

After all, they'd gone all day without making any forward progress. Now the hunt was on the other side of the shield, but still essentially the same. They were running out of time, and had absolutely no idea where to even begin looking for this Claros Dho.

"_You could start with the police," _Robin suggested, evidently not fooled by Aqualad's feigned confidence _"they must have recorded that speech. Maybe there's something in the video, some clue to what kind of building he's in. Something."_

"_It's a place to start,"_ Kid Flash said brightly _"great thinking."_

"_**D**__etective. Remember?."_

"_Who can keep track of all your mad skills?,"_ Kid Flash asked, then added _"hang tight, we'll have a word with the locals. Looks like we've got more than police now. I think the army has arrived."_

"_I have no doubt,"_ Robin laughed without humor _"when you encounter an impenetrable barrier, what do you do?. Call in the tanks, of course."_

* * *

"He sounds better," Kid Flash commented when they were beyond the range of the mind link "don't you think he sounds better?."

"No," Aqualad replied flatly "I believe he is trying to keep our spirits high. Which indicates his own have hit an all-time low."

"Little wonder," Artemis commented "wouldn't you be depressed if you were suffocating in a giant bubble?. I know I would be."

"He's not depressed!. He's just tired, that's all. He's had to carry this by himself. Now he doesn't have to. At last, we can pitch in and do what we do best," Kid Flash retorted, a little more venomously than he had intended.

* * *

Milo had thought he had the world wired when he woke up this morning.

Now he sat at a desk, shuffling papers about. He was supposed to be doing paperwork, but the text on the files didn't make any sense to him. He wasn't sure why he was doing this. Looking around, Milo could see he was just about the only one doing any filing. Everyone else was doing important things, trying to help save the city. And here he was cleaning house. Not doing a good job of it, either.

He must be being punished. This didn't seem like a good time for disciplinary action. But, on the other hand, he'd been too flustered to argue when Gordon plunked him down in the chair and told him to keep filing until he'd stopped sniveling. Well, Gordon had put it more kindly than that, but that was the gist of it. Basically, Milo had screwed up so much that Gordon decided it was best for him to stay here and do paperwork. Safer for everyone if Milo just stayed off the street.

His parents and friends had been right. This was no line of work for him. Not if he needed a babysitter to wipe his nose and keep him from shooting people on his own side. Milo had never shot anybody before, and he didn't like the feel of it. He wondered if he'd killed Robin. He guessed he probably had. After all, life wasn't like the movies. People didn't just keep going after they got shot. No, they either dropped dead at once, or died from shock or blood loss. In any case, they never got up again.

What made it all the worse was knowing that he'd assumed the one wearing the mask was the villain, even though he'd lived in Gotham all his life. Batman had saved him once. Well, not him specifically. One of Gotham's villains had taken a bunch of people hostage, and had been going to kill them all when Batman stepped in and saved their lives.

That made it worse, somehow. Batman had saved Milo's life, and what had he done?. He'd shot the Caped Crusader's partner. Or sidekick. Or whatever Robin was to Batman. Milo didn't really know. But Robin belonged to the Dark Knight, and Milo had shot the Boy Wonder. That about summed it up.

He'd panicked, and shot an innocent bystander. Worse, he'd shot a hero of Gotham.

Milo just wanted to crawl away and die, or for the floor to open up and swallow him. It was little wonder he couldn't read the files. So he just kept shuffling them around like a lab chimp trying to put a puzzle together, banging two pieces against one another in frustration and blank incomprehension.

Nothing made sense. Not anymore.

* * *

Robin couldn't believe how tired and thirsty he was. He supposed blood loss would do that to you. After the Team left, he went upstairs and drank more water than he probably should have, then sank down to sit on the floor, leaning against the fridge.

He didn't really mean to fall asleep, but his eyes kept closing themselves, and there was really nothing for him to do now but wait anyway. He should go see about Alfred, he supposed, but now he was sitting down, Robin found he really didn't want to move.

Well, maybe he could rest for a few minutes.

Later, Robin was never sure he actually slept. He may have just slipped into a kind of deep doze, where his mind fought to work out the problem, now oblivious of its surroundings.

* * *

The first thing he thought he saw was a flickering, light and dark dancing around one another, echoed by the sound of wings which at first seemed leathery, as bat wings were. But the sound softened, while at the same time becoming slower and louder, Suddenly there was noise everywhere. He was lost in the noise, frantic, wild, senseless flapping of bird wings all around him.

"It isn't a shield; it's a filter."

Robin heard the words, understood them, but didn't know why they were here, just barely audible over the now thunderous roar of bird wings. At the same time, both the darkness and the light changed their qualities. The darkness was red-hued, the light was ghostly purple. They flickered and cut around one another, each seeming to fight for control, both often blocked out by the black silhouettes of the birds.

Amidst the noise and light, there came a new string of words, seemingly a product of the surrounding environment, as though it was not spoken but merely felt.

"It isn't a filter; it's a shield."

The original speaker, whoever that was, evidently contested this.

"It's a filter!," the voice was angry, but the universe spoke impassively, silencing bird wing and ghosts and even the light and dark themselves, leaving nothing behind.

"They are both, and neither."

An explosion of noise followed, but then the birds were gone, and Robin was alone, disembodied in his mind. Just floating there, not sure what to do, or what any of this meant.

* * *

Not surprisingly, the army was reluctant to release anything to the Team, but they were eventually persuaded by Superboy, who very carefully explained the situation to them. If they did not release the footage, the Team could easily take it from them. They couldn't waste time getting it from somewhere else. The film was not military property, anyone could have recorded it.

Aqualad might have tried a different tactic, but Superboy had no patience for any of this nonsense. Lives were at stake, and everybody was still acting like this was a tremendous game. This was not chess, he growled, you couldn't just sit there without moving for hours on end. The opponent was not going to wait for you to make a decision.

The next step was to be more time consuming.

There could be no rushing this. They didn't even know exactly what they were looking for. Something, anything, which might help them find this Claros Dho person, whoever he was.

It was easier to take now they were able to skip any part of the video where the man calling himself Claros Dho was off-screen. They didn't feel the need to see again what was happening to Gotham. None of them felt they could stomach it a second time anyway.

It was much easier to just know that Claros Dho was holding a city, and not to think about what the panicked people were doing inside the bubble. It was easier, not because they didn't want to think about it or to pretend it wasn't happening, but because they were _unable_ to do anything about it.

Anything besides what they were doing now.

But what where they looking for?. The room was mostly dark, seemed to be windowless. How was one to know what they were looking at or where this might be?.

"This is a waste of time," Artemis said, at length.

It was what all of them had been thinking, but none had wanted to say it. To admit aloud that they didn't see anything of use in the film was to admit that there was no way they could find this villain. It was to go back to Robin empty-handed, leaving him no way to save his city.

There wasn't one among them who wanted to do that, but it was looking as though they didn't have a choice. There wasn't anything to be gained from watching this footage time and again.

Superboy had left for a time, and returned now.

"Do the police have any leads yet?," Aqualad wanted to know.

"They don't have the guy on record," Superboy growled irritably, as though that were some sort of failing of the country's legal system "nobody's figured out who he is. They've got prank callers identifying him as any number of people, most of whom are dead."

"Robin said he looked familiar," Miss Martian commented "could he be a local figure?."

"What kind of figure could that man possibly be?," Artemis demanded, stopping just short of saying that she'd never seen him before.

"Could be like Bruce Wayne," Kid Flash suggested "you know, rich, owns a company, goes to parties a lot... that kind of famous. Only less so, since I don't recognize him."

Privately, he thought this unlikely, unless the man didn't attend social functions often. Robin would almost surely recognize him were that the case. But he didn't say this.

"Why would a rich old man want to do this?," Artemis asked in a tone akin to disbelief.

"Why would _anyone_ want to?," Kid Flash countered.

"That is not relevant," Aqualad interrupted before a fight could get underway "it is not a question of why. It is a question of who. If we can find out who this man is, perhaps we may discover where he is. At this time, that is of most importance. Agreed?."

Kid Flash and Artemis did agree, albeit somewhat sulkily. Both were spoiling for a fight by this point, growing antsy as they felt time slipping away from them. There was nothing they could do. The waiting was over, the ball was in their court, and _still_ there was nothing they could do.

Even so, that was no reason to turn on each other. That wouldn't help them to save Gotham. In fact, it was highly unlikely that it would even make them feel better to take their frustrations out on one another. Even knowing this, it was hard to keep a cool head when they felt so helpless.

The worst part was that they knew they'd have to go back and tell Robin they'd failed. He'd been counting on them to save his home, and they'd let him down.


	14. Chapter 12

_02:15 PM_

Robin seemed to take the bad news in stride. In reality, he was preoccupied by the images his mind had created while he dozed, or slept, or whatever. It wasn't like a regular dream, where you just forgot about it afterwords. He knew there was something there. Some solution he wasn't seeing. But it was no good thinking about it for too long. He had other, more pressing matters to deal with.

"_We think he might be famous locally, for being rich or something,"_ Kid Flash explained.

"_Seems possible," _Robin replied, nodding to himself.

Yes, he had seen that face before. He knew he had. But where?. That was the question of the hour. Robin had an idea where he could start. Commissioner Gordon tended to keep files on majorly recognized locals, nothing illegal or anything like that, but newspaper clippings and the like.

It wasn't as preposterous as it sounded. So often the rich and famous of Gotham later turned to villainy, or were already secretly participating in illegal activities. It came up often enough that Gordon had begun to do some preemptive filing, to make it easier to find out about these people if and when it came up. There was doubtless even a file on Bruce Wayne, whom Gordon had met on more than one occasion. They had struck up a casual, if reserved, friendship.

Though Bruce was widely known to be a playboy, he never gave police any trouble, a fact Gordon very much appreciated. Also, Bruce was something of a philanthropist, something most people found favor with. Of course, nearly anyone with any amount of money was expected to start charities or donate to them. Even so, Gordon had a suspicious nature, and he was very thorough.

If Claros Dho was wealthy and/or politically active, Gordon was sure to know about it, or have him in the files somewhere. The biggest concern Robin had was whether it would be hard-copy or on a computer. The city's electricity was bound to fail entirely, if it hadn't already.

It would be a massive pain in the neck to try to manually generate enough electricity to run a computer. It was possible, but not a prospect Robin looked forward to.

Robin explained his thinking, that Gordon might know something about this man. Robin would have to go to the station and look through the files himself, because Gordon not only didn't know about the news broadcast, he wouldn't know what the man looked like either.

It was risky to enter police headquarters, Robin knew. Though Gordon worked with Batman, it would be all-too-easy for some trigger happy cop to decide to shoot or arrest Robin for being a vigilante. That had, of course, already been illustrated in blood by the policeman who shot him earlier.

Batman had rules he followed for how and when he contacted Gordon. Robin knew them as well as the Caped Crusader himself did. What he had to do was unsafe. It would have been incredibly reckless if there'd been any way around it. But Robin couldn't think of any scenario where he could avoid going to the Gotham City Police Department.

He had to know who Claros Dho was, to find out what buildings he owned or what cities he frequented when he went on trips. Something, anything, which might lead the Team to where the man was now.

"_I don't like it, Rob, I'll say that right now," _Kid Flash told him _"But I don't see that you have a choice."_

"_I don't like it either, but there's nothing for it. I think I have to go. Unless one of you has a better idea,"_ Robin added the last part without any real hope in his voice.

Nobody did. None of them wanted him to go, but he didn't seem to have a choice.

"_We'll be here when you get back,"_ Miss Martian said finally, and that was the end of it.

* * *

Robin rode the R-cycle most of the way, leaving it hidden in one of the many spots Batman had set up around the city. He left it there, and approached the police station on foot, from rooftop level. He kept low, and felt the urge to slow down until he was just barely moving forward at all. He did not want to be here. Of all the places in the world he didn't want to be, this one hit the top of the list.

It was unspeakably dangerous. Not only was his life in jeopardy, but so was his identity. And, with that, Batman's. Beyond which, if he was caught, or shot (as seemed more likely), Gotham was doomed. It might be anyway, but it would definitely be if he got himself killed.

It was soon evident that the police station was largely abandoned. Robin couldn't see Gordon through any windows, nor could he see anyone else. Admittedly, the windows were few and far between for safety reasons, but it was still odd not to see _anyone_ at all. It made him more uneasy.

He couldn't go running around the city looking for Gordon. He had to get inside, and locate the files on his own, and hope nobody caught him at it. There were a limited number of exits for the police station. As was mentioned, there weren't windows to speak of and there were also few hiding places inside.

Fortunately, Robin knew he was small enough to fit in the air ducts. Batman wasn't, but Robin was. There were many advantages to being small for his age. They far outweighed the disadvantages. That was his escape route if he should find himself needing one. It was also his way inside.

As one might expect, Robin knew the layout of the station very well. Though he seldom went there, and was never seen by the people who worked there, he had the place pretty much memorized. It was one of those places he knew he might need to go and, if he did, there might not be time to download blueprints. He'd never imagined being unable to hack or download _anything_.

As one might imagine, crawling through air ducts is not an especially pleasant activity. Add to that cracked ribs, a broken arm and bullet wound and it becomes a decidedly hellish experience. Robin did his best to focus on where he was going instead of what he was feeling, but it was becoming harder and harder to ignore the pain in his body with each new venture he undertook.

To help distract himself, he tried to think of a more uncomfortable mission he'd been on. He could certainly remember feeling more exhausted, and perhaps more hopeless, but he couldn't imagine anything being more uncomfortable than dragging yourself on your belly through a dusty air duct when every part of you felt bruised or broken. It also came to him that he couldn't recall a mission which had been plagued by so many setbacks. He then decided to stop thinking about it.

He found the file room and dropped down into it silently, taking great care not to let a shower of dust follow him down. He landed so precisely that the dust on his costume wasn't shaken loose. He had no intention of leaving evidence that he'd been here.

Robin went at once to the main file computer, which should at the very least have a list of where everything was. It required a password, so he plugged in the computer in his gauntlet so he could hack in. It was at this point that he discovered something decidedly unsettling.

His computer, which ought to have been essentially self-powered, was almost out of battery. That flat shouldn't have been the case. He needed this computer for missions, it needed to be able to run for days at a time without being powered off or recharged. It had to be reliable because his life, and the lives of his Team, depended on it. He'd designed it himself, basing it off specs for an experimental device being designed by Wayne Enterprises. It had worked perfectly for several years now.

He threw that problem into the back of his mind. He could worry about that in a bit, and also elsewhere. Right now, he needed to get into the GCPD computer system. One thing at a time. He knew how to take things one at a time.

He set to work immediately, and it didn't take long. The computer at the batcave was more or less permanently hacked into a number of government databases. It wasn't right now because there was no internet. It looked like even the local network was down because the system ran on internet rather than cables. Typical. Use the easiest and most convenient method, instead of the safest.

On the other hand, Robin was uncomfortably reminded of his own computer's failing battery. He relied on that piece of hardware, perhaps a little too much. But it was hard to keep detailed maps in your head, and it was easier to break into a system when you had a program designed to do just that at your fingertips. Everything was easier with that little computer, it even had GPS tracking and could locate any member of the Team within a reasonable range. Ordinarily anyway.

It looked like he was about to have to do without it for awhile. Oh well.

It didn't take long to crack open the filing computer. It was designed to resist hacking from outside, but it was relatively unprotected when it came to devices plugged directly into it.

Once inside, Robin took a few seconds to get used to the search engine. It was remarkably inefficient by his standards, and didn't look like it had been updated in years.

_No wonder Gotham needs Batman,_ Robin thought, _they've got a visually attractive, but completely useless system in place. Why can't there ever be both?. It's either functional or graphically impressive. The two aren't mutually exclusive. So why..._

He let that thought trail off, and refocused on the task at hand. He also resisted the temptation to reprogram the system so long as he was there. That, to him, was harder than moving carefully enough not to dislodge the dust which clung to him. He felt almost offended that such a crappy system existed, much less that it was what GCPD used on a daily basis.

It was entirely possible that, had circus life not been to his liking, Robin might have become a techie of some sort. That is, assuming he'd never met Batman. As it was, he got to be a little of everything. Though there were times, like right now, that it made him a little sad. Maybe when he grew up he'd design and sell an amazing operating system, become very rich and then retire. Meh, probably not.

_No Claros Dho is listed. Big surprise. I thought that name sounded dumb. But filtering by facial features makes no sense. I don't know what these terms are supposed to mean. Why can't I just draw it?. Or something like that. These terms don't make any sense._

Robin began to wonder if this too was a dead end. He was sick to death of wasting his time on fruitless exercises. It seemed like all he'd done since first thing this morning was spin his wheels. He'd been running all over the city, getting worn out and beat up and what for?. Nothing. Zip. Nada. He hadn't made an inch of forward progress.

He stood in front of the computer, his face lit mainly by the monitor screen because the lights were off in the room. Probably to conserve power. He glared at the computer program with its over-specialized search engine and bad terminology and user-unfriendly interface. He hated it. He wanted to destroy it, or rewrite it. Here, at least, was something he could affect, something broken that he could fix. Except that he shouldn't. Nobody was to know he'd ever been here. Thwarted again.

Robin was so busy fuming at the uncooperative machine that he failed to notice when the door to the filing room opened, and didn't hear the man step inside. He did, however, notice when the lights came on. By then it was much too late.

Looking up in surprise and something akin to shock, Robin found himself staring into the eyes of the man who had shot him just this morning.


	15. Chapter 13

_03:00 PM_

Milo was so startled at seeing Robin that he almost dropped the stack of files he'd been planning to return (now sorted) to their proper cabinet. It was almost more how Robin looked than the fact he was there at all. He hardly looked recently shot. Aside from a cast on one arm and a thick layer of dust covering him head to foot, he looked just fine.

Robin didn't move, holding still as a statue, almost as though he thought himself to be invisible. The truth could be seen in his face. The dark eyes behind the mask were wild, not in a panicky sort of way, but in the way of a tiger finding itself cornered, becoming all the more dangerous for any fear which might be present in its mind.

Milo felt suddenly how alone he was inside the station. There were men posted outside to keep people from ransacking the place, but all available personnel had hit the streets to deal with the latest crisis. Milo was alone in the building. Or had been alone. Now he found himself in an arena with a small boy, who looked like he had the heart of a tiger and was evidently immune to bullets.

Bullets. Milo had shot him earlier. That had to have ticked him off a bit. Milo wondered for a frantic instant if Robin had come to kill him. But it didn't look that way. Why come to the filing room?. Why hack into a computer?. The computer in Robin's gauntlet was still plugged in, a thin wire trailed away under the desk to the filing computer.

Milo reminded himself that Robin was a vigilante, hellbent on trying to save Gotham in his own way. Whatever he was doing here, it was for Gotham's own good that he got what he came for.

Milo licked his lips nervously, and shifted the stack of files slightly. Robin's eyes seemed to dart about and take close note of Milo's every move, including the deep intake of breath before he spoke.

"Something I can help you with?," the question sounded absurd, Milo felt a twinge of embarrassment.

Robin's head tilted slightly, as though he were curious now, or perhaps confused. Either way, he continued to stand there and say nothing, and that made Milo all the more uneasy. And for good reason.

Robin, for his part, could tell from Milo's face that the man was alone in the building. Robin could take him out, or simply escape from him. It wouldn't be difficult, this guy was way out of his league with Robin, especially awkwardly weighed down with papers as he was.

"I'm looking for a certain man," Robin said after a long pause, which was more for effect than anything, having already decided that he didn't want to leave without gleaning at least some information about his adversary, Claros Dho (or whatever his name really was).

"Oh?. Who?," Milo decided he would have to do something about the files he was holding.

He stepped cautiously into the room. Robin watched him, but didn't seem especially concerned. In reality, Robin was quite concerned, but didn't feel any need to display that publicly. He watched dispassionately as Milo crossed to a filing cabinet, jostled the files onto one arm so he could open the drawer, and painstakingly dropped them into it.

"He calls himself Claros Dho, but I don't think that's his real name," Robin said just before Milo slid the drawer shut with a bang "he's the one who's holding the city captive."

"Huh," Milo said, dusting off his hands "it's not easy to find someone without a name. Any identifying marks?. Scars, tattoos?."

"Nothing covered by your database," Robin replied, casting a baleful eye at the monitor screen.

"Maybe Claros Dho isn't a name of a man. Maybe it's an organization," Milo suggested.

"Tried that."

"An acronym."

"Helluva long one," Robin said, then added "tried that too."

By this point, Milo had almost forgotten who he was talking to. His mind had latched onto the problem and he'd put his whole focus into it. Like Robin, he could see how important this information might be. Here was something he could do that might help save the city. And maybe make up for his earlier mistake. He drifted over to the computer.

Robin moved aside, keeping a careful distance from the man. Robin had not forgotten who he was dealing with, and he was no fool. Anyone can feign helpfulness to achieve their own ends, and this man had already attacked him once. He might well do it again.

"Maybe a company or building?," Milo asked.

"Tried companies, nothing useful," Robin replied.

"What about buildings?," Milo persisted.

"No, but I don't think it matters. See, he's not in the city right now. There wouldn't be any record of buildings beyond city limits, would there?."

"Probably not, but we can still try, right?."

Robin shrugged, and Milo took that to be a yes.

In truth, Robin was somewhat surprised to find that Milo had taken to the name, rather than the individual. Instead of looking for the man, he was looking for a place. Of course, it was only practical. Milo had no idea what the man looked like. Besides which, he probably knew that the computer's search engine might as well have been made of spit and baling twine for all the good it did.

"Damn this piece of junk!," Milo snarled after a moment, when the program failed to operate as he wanted it to. Evidently he was aware of how terrible the search engine was "who designed this?!."

"An idiot," Robin said curtly "who will never have to use it."

They were quiet for a time as Milo tried to wrestle the information he wanted from the computer.

"The city building records aren't here. And we can't access them without internet," Milo sighed.

"Never mind that," Robin told him "I've thought of something. I know that name. Claros Dho, I know I've heard it before. You got me to thinking about it, and I'm sure there was an article about it recently."

"So?. We don't keep tabs on news websites," Milo said.

"But you do if they involve someone you want to keep an eye on. So look through the recent news articles. We're looking for a headline."

"I don't see what good that will do."

"Just do it," Robin hissed impatiently "and stop wasting time. We've already done enough of that."

Milo suddenly remembered who he was dealing with. He found his guilt had been replaced by a chill, a sense of fear. Despite his small size, Robin was incredibly menacing. Every move spoke of power and superb self-control. Even to the untrained eye, it was evident that Robin was at once hyper-aware of everything around him and almost disdainful of it, as if it were all beneath him. The sense of him being like a big cat had returned. He was every bit as dangerous and unpredictable as one.

His presence was very intense and Milo was again struck by how Robin seemed virtually unhurt. He couldn't know that Robin had cleaned himself up and was simply hiding his weakness on instinct. He was nowhere near as strong and confident as he outwardly appeared. But Milo was right on one count. Robin was incredibly dangerous when provoked.

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence while Milo argued with the computer, which didn't want to do what he told it too. It kept asking him if he meant this or that, or if he really wanted to be searching in a different category.

"Whoever thought it was a good idea to make computers smart enough to give suggestions was either stupid as hell, insane or completely evil," Milo commented at one point, but Robin didn't respond.

At last news website headlines and newspaper snapshots flashed across the screen. Robin leaned forward to see better. Milo sat tensely, half-afraid Robin would try to kill him now that he was no longer useful. But Robin ignored him completely, as though he didn't even exist anymore.

In a way, he didn't. Robin's entire focus was on the headlines and briefly scanning the accompanying articles. He was looking for Claros Dho, or a photograph of the gentleman with the rabbit. That was all he cared about in this moment. If Milo had decided to turn on him right then, it would have been entirely possible that Robin would have been taken unawares. But that didn't happen.

And it was a good thing too, for Milo at any rate. Even taken by surprise, Robin was probably more than a match for the young policeman. Milo had the good sense to know that. And, even if he hadn't, he probably could have felt it in the Boy Wonder's presence.

It didn't take a psychic or an empath to tell that Robin was beyond the abilities of any ordinary human. When you trained with superheroes and fought villains which had superhuman abilities, you had to be beyond the norm. Robin's training and experience made him more than a match for any mere policeman. He might not be physically stronger, but he had pretty much everything else in his favor.

Milo had always assumed Robin, at least, was just human. He wasn't so sure about Batman. But Robin had seemed distinctly human to him somehow. Now he wasn't so convinced. While he didn't feel as though he was in the presence of a god or an alien or anything of the like, he was not either inclined to think he was sitting next to a mere mortal such as he was. Robin was something else, that he was sure of. Human and yet somehow not, somehow beyond and entirely different.

"Bingo," the word spoken seemed so ordinary, but the hungry gleam in the young hero's eyes was most decidedly unsettling and Milo found he didn't want to know what the next step in this hunt was going to be. It was just as well he did not, for Robin would not have told him.

The headline which elicited the delighted, if seemingly ghoulish, response from Robin was about a Gotham man who had made billions in various enterprises, most recently a chain of fancy hotels, the first being right here in Gotham, the second (soon to be open to the public) was located in Metropolis, which was the next major city over.

"Hotel Claros Dho," Milo breathed aloud "owned by one Kenneth Wagner."

But Robin, he found, had already disappeared. If the name was not enough evidence, the picture in the article was. Kenneth Wagner, notoriously shy of publicity, had not managed to elude the photographers this time. Pictured was an elderly gentleman standing in front of his Gotham hotel holding a large rabbit. It was the self-same man who had earlier made the alarming broadcast on all news channels that he was the one in control of Gotham, and that Gotham was going to destroy itself. It was all Robin needed. Kenneth Wagner had to be at that second Claros Dho hotel.

Milo, for his part, breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was evident that Robin had more things on his mind than revenge for Milo's shooting him. Perhaps that would reach the top of his priority list later, but apparently not right now. For the moment, at least, Milo was still alive.

And feeling just slightly redeemed for having been able to help the red-clad vigilante, if only in such an incredibly small way. He couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for that Wagner fellow. He knew what it was like to be on the wrong side of a dark hero, to find himself standing before the image of a boy, but feeling as though he were in the presence of something very much like a demon.

It was an experience he would never forget, and hoped fervently would never be repeated.


	16. Chapter 14

_04:23 PM_

Robin hadn't messed around. The instant he had the information he needed, he made a beeline for home. He wasted no time getting there, at times favoring speed over caution.

"_Why would he say his name was Claros Dho if that's the name of his hotel?. And why on Earth would he actually _be_ there, knowing that someone might recognize the name?," _Kid Flash wanted to know.

"_Maybe he intends to be caught,"_ Miss Martian suggested, but Artemis was probably more on the money when she said it might be a trap.

"_Either he overestimates his fame or underestimates it. Either way, it does not matter. We must find him, and take control from him," _Aqualad said, effectively ending the discussion.

"_Why can't anyone ever just estimate things?. It's always over or under."_

Nobody answered Robin's question. They bid him farewell and then they were gone and he was alone in the eery quiet of the Batcave. It had never bothered him before now, but suddenly the cave seemed vast and empty and unwelcoming. Strange how something so familiar could seem so alien because of circumstance. Without Batman or Alfred there, it felt as though Robin were an intruder in some kind of mystic sanctuary. He shivered and forced the thoughts out of mind.

He turned his attention to his next problem. It seemed minor when surrounded by all this other stuff, but it was important. For some reason, his gauntlet computer wasn't holding a charge. When he looked at it, he realized it was worse than he'd thought. The computer was completely dead.

_But it was plugged into the GCPD computer. It should have gained a charge from that, not lost it._

It didn't make any sense. Robin wasn't partial to claiming things to be impossible, but this flat shouldn't have happened. He examined the computer bit by bit, and couldn't find anything wrong. Nothing was cracked or shorted out, it just didn't work. He decided to plug it into the Batcave computer, see if he couldn't get enough of a charge to start it up.

It was at this point that he discovered that computer was also dead. This too, seemed impossible. The equipment of the Batcave was powered by a self-running generator. It should be absolutely fine. Power to the city had been cut before and it had always been fine. It didn't make any sense.

When Robin went to check it, he found the generator running, but it seemed to be wearing out, as if it was burning itself out. Something was demanding more power than it could give. But what?. Hardly anything in the Batcave was running. And Wayne Manor was completely dark.

It didn't take Robin long to figure out what was happening. What he couldn't figure was _how_. Clearly, the massive device under the city was siphoning power from outside sources. Okay, so it could do that with power lines, but privately owned generators?. It didn't seem possible, unless that too was an invention of the device's creator, a way of stealing power from all sources in a certain radius.

Possible, of course. Of course it was possible. But it seemed outside the range of current human technology. The madman was either a certifiable genius or stealing from alien tech. Robin was reluctant to admit it was probably the first one. The device was too unrefined for it to be otherwise.

Robin hated to know that such a brilliant mind should also be cracked and evil.

Unfortunately, unlike in the movies, it wasn't always the good guys who designed brilliant devices and the bad guys who created the plague. It could go either way, with ignorant inventors and brilliant fools playing on both sides, often more interested in what they were accomplishing than what it would do. The world needed such people if progress was to be made, and everyone wanted progress (except the people who thought humanity should go back to living in caves and hitting each other with clubs and worshiping fire). Unfortunately, by the nature of humanity, such intellectual giants fell on either side, good or evil. Some of the greatest inventions were made by the worst people, and some of the most harmful had come from some of the most passionate and gentle of souls.

Robin didn't spend much time on reflection. He knew he had a bigger problem. Something told him that he would have to disarm the device himself. The remote control might shut down the shield, but the filter would likely still be running. It was his memory of the device's design which told him this.

Disarming it would be the easy part. The hard part would be getting there. Without his computer, Robin had no access to any maps, least of all of under the city itself. He would have to go by memory. But he'd taken so many turns down there, just looking for the device, it was hard to remember exactly which path had eventually led to the device.

Robin knew that he might be lost forever if he went down there. But he couldn't see a way around it. He couldn't get another set of blueprints, at least not easily. Not without any computers to print out a copy. He had to go from memory, there was no other option.

He decided that he'd best get started.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, his memory awoke to the dream he'd had earlier. His brain chewed on it. There was something there, something important, if only he could see what it was.

* * *

After Robin left, Milo had continued to stare at the computer and mess around with the program. He'd never thought of himself as much of a programmer, but that was because his dad and two older brothers had always been so much better at it than he was (largely due to them being older and having more experience). Looking at this program now, he could see a thousand ways it would be improved. What's more, he had at least the beginnings of an idea on how to make them that way.

He had more sense than to mess around with the GCPD computer, knowing he might mess it up. Instead he went to his locker and pulled out his laptop. Since he always forgot to charge the battery, he thought nothing of plugging it into the power strip.

Milo didn't entirely remember that he was at work and supposed to be filing. He was bad at filing. And besides, this was like filing, sort of. And anyway, if he had thought about it, he would have determined that nobody would be angry with him for doing this now. He wasn't helping in the current crisis, so it didn't matter what he did, just so long as he was out of the way.

But evidently that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing right now. He'd barely started working on the coding when his laptop snapped off. He tried unplugging it and plugging it back in, and plugging it into an outlet and a different power strip, but it didn't work.

He was no Robin, but he had grown up around techies. It didn't take him long to figure out what must be happening. His response was to leave the station and walk to the nearest building owned by a power company. It wasn't where the power was produced, it was building full of cubicles. But those computers had a program for seeing where power is going.

By virtue of badge and bullying tactics, he convinced the employees to let him use their computers. He knew nobody else was doing that, because they were busy either freaking out or trying to hold the city together with crazy glue and silly string.

It was actually surprising that these people had come to work today. Evidently they had decided to pretend nothing was amiss and just keep doing their jobs. Now that was loyalty to the company. Milo hoped they all got raises or something, but they probably wouldn't. At best, they might get a mug with the company logo on it.

"All the power's headed underground, right to the center of the city," observed one employee who was looking over Milo's shoulder.

Milo knew nothing of what Robin and the Team had discovered over the course of the day. He had to guess. It wasn't that difficult. There was something in the middle of the city causing a massive power drain. It seemed unlikely that it was unrelated to what was going on above ground.

While the power company computer didn't have blueprints of the whole city, it did have them for the power conduits underground and consequently many of the tunnels as well.

"Robin must know that," Milo muttered to himself.

"What do you mean?," asked one woman, but Milo didn't answer.

He didn't see what help he could be to the Boy Wonder, but he felt somehow compelled to head underground. What could he possibly do that anyone else couldn't?. He didn't know, but it didn't matter. Here was a chance to help save the city. He'd be a fool not to take it.

* * *

When Milo reached the subway tunnel entrance, the sky seemed lower and more deeply purple than it had been earlier. Maybe it was because darkness was falling beyond the barrier. Maybe it was a mere illusion. Milo didn't know, but it made him uneasy so he didn't look up anymore.

Milo had brought a flashlight, but found it didn't work. He was momentarily surprised, and then felt very foolish. Of course it didn't work. It ran on batteries.

"Come to see the show?," a shadowy voice asked, and Milo was startled to see Robin perched almost directly in front of him on the railing for the subway tunnel stairs.

Milo blinked, so surprised he couldn't find his voice at first. He again had the sense of being in the presence of something somehow otherworldly, which he couldn't control nor even understand. Robin was a breed apart from him, that much was certain, though Milo was once again very nearly convinced that the Boy Wonder was just as human as he was.

"I think the device making this energy shield-thing is down underground," Milo said shakily, when at last he could find his tongue at all.

To his deep shock and partial embarrassment, Robin laughed. Not an unkind laugh, but a greatly amused one, as though Milo's statement was terribly funny. The boy's eyes seemed to dance and flash beneath the mask, though that might have been a trick of the energy field casting strange light and shadow on the world inside of itself.

"I didn't expect you here," Robin said when his amusement subsided "you, of all people. You're right, of course, and now you've figured it out, don't you feel stupid for not thinking it sooner?. I know I do."

Milo blinked, and once again lost the power of words. Though Robin seemed more human than ever, not to mention very easily amused, there was still a sense of danger radiating from him. It would not, Milo thought, be safe to laugh or speak too freely around this boy.

"Ooh, what's this?," one swift movement cut the distance between them and Robin snatched away the maps Milo had printed out and alighted on another portion of the railing, this time over the tunnel itself.

Milo hadn't even seen or heard him move, but he had felt Robin snatching the papers. He stared up at the odd creature inspecting his maps. The bird-like quickness of his movement and eyes brought on the illusion that he was something other than human. Milo knew nothing of Robin's background as a performer, and so could not see the practiced character playing that the boy was doing without even realizing it. The Robin persona was one the boy adopted almost unconsciously.

"This is good," Robin said, then tilted his head towards Milo "shall we go down and see what there is to find in the dark underneath this city?."

It was the last thing Milo had expected to hear. More shocking to him still was hearing himself say yes.


	17. Chapter 15

_05:05 PM_

The Hotel Claros Dho was a grand-looking building, which seemed more castle than hotel. It was out of place among all the modern, boring, glass-heavy Metropolis buildings. It looked a bit as if it had been dropped into the middle of the city from another era, though there were touches here and there that gave away the fact that it was only recently constructed.

Kenneth Wagner had not bought a building and turned it into a hotel, he had bought either an empty plot of land or (far more likely) bulldozed whatever had been there before in order to make way for this castle-hotel, which came complete with gargoyles, though they were less grotesque than proper gargoyles, as though the designer was afraid of being "too authentic".

The Team had expected the meet some kind of resistance, guards or at the very least a smaller version of the shield/filter surrounding Gotham. Or maybe just an alarm or security cameras. But there seemed to be nothing of the sort. The building was locked, but it was easy to get into the enormous lobby.

Two gilded statues of some oriental breed of cat stood on either side of the lobby doors, facing each other from across the walkway. They were in a sitting position, and were about five feet high, and looked like they were carved of marble trimmed in gold. They were probably more hideous than the sort of faux-gargoyles outside of the building, just because they seemed so gaudy and out-of-place in the otherwise ordinary-looking lobby.

It was as though the thought for a sort of theme had come up on the outside, been forgotten and replaced by another inside, which was then also discarded in favor of something ordinary, if a little off somehow. The whole lobby looked like a display case with all of the objects inside just slightly off center, which made the whole affair seemed lopsided and slipshod.

"Who would want to stay in this place?," Artemis wondered aloud.

Kid Flash, who had run the full length and width of the room several times already, came to a halt beside her and shrugged wordlessly. Normally, he never shut up, but Artemis had just said all which seemed appropriate to say in this bizarrely normal lobby.

"Spread out," Aqualad said "if you find Wagner, do not engage if you can avoid it. Inform the rest of us and we will regroup. I do not believe victory is as near as it now seems."

The rest agreed, though they didn't say so. Perhaps they were dealing with an old man carrying a grudge, but so far he was the one who had been pulling all the strings. Since three o'clock this morning, it had been purely his show, they were merely actors in his play. And they didn't like it, especially since all evidence suggested he was a doddering old fool, and an absent-minded eccentric at that. It was maddening to be outdone by such a person, but it also led them to the conclusion that this "doddering old fool" must have more tricks up his sleeve than one might suspect.

Extreme caution was warranted.

* * *

Robin wasn't sure exactly why he was compelled to invite Milo along. He guessed maybe he just didn't want to be by himself. He was used to having company. In any case, he had an extra pair of night vision goggles. They were of an alien design, superior to Earth technology. Robin didn't remember where or from whom Batman had picked the tech up and it really didn't matter anyway.

Milo, whose name Robin had never actually caught, wasn't good with night vision. Actually, maybe he wasn't good with any vision. Robin was in a hurry, but often found himself having to wait for Milo, lest the young policeman get lost in the tunnels.

Milo, for his part of the operation, wondered why he'd decided to come along. It was clear he was holding Robin up. Milo didn't like it down here, and didn't much feel like he could do any more good than Robin by himself was capable of. And yet he kept following the sprite-like vigilante. He kept losing track of Robin, and fearing he'd been left behind. How easy would it be for Robin to just leave him here in the dark?. Robin had taken the map, and hadn't given it back. Without the Boy Wonder, Milo probably would never find his way back to the surface. They'd taken too many turns and gone so very deep and there were tunnels branching out in all directions.

Milo felt a sense of creeping horror. What if Robin left him here?. Maybe that would be his revenge. Every time Milo lost sight of Robin, the fear was renewed and he nearly panicked more than once. But Robin always reappeared, appearing at once impatient and impassive, a seeming contradiction in terms.

Milo kept expecting Robin to tell him to just wait here while he went on ahead and did whatever needed to be done. He kept expecting a sharp rebuke, angry name calling or a command to return to the surface alone. But it never happened. The longer nothing happened, the more Milo's imagination began to run away with him. He thought of a thousand terrible things which might be in the dark, or which Robin might suddenly decide to do to him.

He had never been a jittery person, nor had his imagination ever been allowed to run riot. But it certainly was now, and that was in no small part due to Robin's presence. The familiar wrapped up in a mystery made Robin seem more of an enigma than if he had been a six tentacled space alien.

Milo decided, for the sake of his nerves, that he ought to strike up some kind of conversation. The next time Robin stopped to consult his map, Milo waited until the vigilante started to move on and then tried to begin a conversation. His voice was small and unsteady at first, but he didn't like that and quickly focused on sounding as normal as possible in the echoing tunnels.

"How did you break your arm?," _stupid question_, he thought even as he said it.

"Hmm?," Robin tilted his head, but his mind caught up with his ears and he processed the question before he grinned a bit sheepishly "oh this?. This is nothing. I just got run over is all. You could say I stopped when I should have dropped and rolled."

"Someone hit you with a car?."

Robin seemed to find this enormously funny, though he managed to do no more than chuckle quietly and shake his head as though that were the stupidest idea he'd ever heard.

"No. No, I think it might have been his shoulder, though I can't claim that I was paying much attention at the time," Robin said, still shaking his head "I was... otherwise occupied."

"Super-villain?," Milo guessed.

"Nah, just a friend," Robin replied with a shrug.

Milo wondered what kind of friends go around breaking your arms. If he'd known about the accident, he might have realized that his own mistake was hardly even worth remembering to Robin's way of thinking. As it was evident Milo didn't intend to shoot him again, Robin had dismissed the man as a threat almost at once. No sense getting bent out of shape by something which was past and therefor couldn't be helped. Robin had better things to spend time on than holding a grudge.

Milo, of course, couldn't know that. And perhaps it was just as well that he didn't.

* * *

It was Superboy who eventually found the old man's lair. While the others had been looking for private offices on the ground floor and VIP hotel rooms, he had been drawn to a staircase leading down to a basement. A short corridor at the bottom of the stairs ended in two closed doors. One led to where things like power generators and water heaters and whatnot were kept. Superboy didn't go searching there, though he meant to if the other door yielded nothing more promising.

But this door led to a carpeted hallway, complete with wallpaper, ornate light fixtures and framed pictures. It was a weird thing to find in a basement, but Superboy wasn't surprised.

Perhaps it was because he had come from a basement, or maybe he had noticed a total absence of windows in the film showing the lair. Either way, he started down the hall, careful to make no noise. Being powerful as he was, Superboy was not really afraid of running into anything too big for him to handle and, even had he expected such trouble, he was always eager for a good fight. But Aqualad had said not to engage.

The hallway had no doors, just many pictures, all of which had the same qualities as the outside of the building and the lobby itself. First there was a sort of medieval painting of a knight and armored horse, then a fox hunt, a Picasso and a Da Vinci. And so on. Just a weird collection of art, hung in no apparent order. The red and gold oriental rug on the floor was no help at all.

Superboy took no great notice of the décor, and was only half-aware of how peculiar it was and only because his own senses were offended by the cacophony of color and pattern.

At last he came to a hearty oaken door. Listening, he could hear computers whirring on the other side. Listening harder, he could catch the sound of a chair squeaking, and was able to make out the sounds of at least two men. He knew he'd found what they were looking for.

"_Aqualad," _he addressed the Team's leader specifically _"I've found him."_

"_We are on our way."_

No sooner had this exchange been made than a creaky, then a strong voice from the other side of the door called to Superboy: "Don't just stand out there gawking, it's terribly rude. Get in here where I can see you properly. Quick now!."

Superboy had no qualms about disobeying, but neither did he see any particular sense in standing out in the hallway when the room's occupants were already aware of him. He opened the door and came in.

The room, in sharp contrast to the hallway, was basically without decoration except for the maroon chair in which sat the old man and on whose arm lounged a white rabbit.

"Huh, what a strange creature you are," the old man said, fondling his rabbit and looking at Superboy through rheumy yet immeasurably piercing and cold eyes "not human, certainly not."

Superboy, as was his habit, said nothing and merely glared evenly at his adversary. For this was an enemy, harmless and frail as he might look in that chair.

"What concern is it of yours if a number of humans get together and slaughter one another?. Hmm?. I don't suppose you've lived in Gotham, have you?. Hellish place, you know. Absolutely dissolute, completely uncivilized. But I suppose you could say that about humanity in general."

Not having said anything the first time around seemed to have worked well, so Superboy took the same tactic at this second break. He glanced around the room at the many computers, all of which doubtless had their function. Some for hacking, some for displaying live what cameras around Gotham were capturing, one seemed to have a game of solitaire open. In the corner stood a second man, looking exceedingly uncomfortable.

He had not counted on the Team actually coming here. He wanted nothing to do with superheroes. This job was getting far too hazardous, and he wasn't being paid nearly enough for this.

At this point the rest of the Team arrived and came in behind Superboy. The standing man looked almost seasick, but the old man in the chair was as cool as a cucumber.

"And here you are at last. I was wondering how long it would take you. I suppose you've been relying on human intelligence, considering most of you are human, or," he cast an eye towards Kid Flash "close enough at any rate. And I suppose now you'll want to take my toys away."

Aqualad stepped forward, but Kid Flash started speaking before he could say anything.

"This isn't a game!," Kid Flash burst out, gesturing wildly to the equipment scattered about "these are people's lives you're playing with!. You're hurting people!. Innocent people, who've never gone a thing to you!."

"Kid...," Miss Martian began, trying to lay a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off roughly.

"And you're human too!. A human who made your fortune in the very city you're destroying, from the very people you're going to kill!," Kid Flash went on angrily "and for what?. To prove humans are monsters?. You think what you're doing isn't proof enough?."

"The actions of a single individual are always construed as isolated insanity or a bad childhood. The actions of a group are attributed to the mob mentality. The actions of an entire city... that is not something which can be put into one of your little check-boxes."

"You think we don't know we're monsters?," Kid Flash burst out and found himself unable to stop, even though he began to want to "You want monsters?. My carelessness nearly got my best friend killed. And not by some villain, either. By me. I was directly responsible for what happened."

"You have a point, I assume?," the old man asked when KF paused for breath.

Kid Flash was seething, and not even sure where he was going with this himself. He was just angry, not only about what this man was doing and how he'd used Robin, but also from what he himself had done not so long ago. He was still furious with himself for it.

"Why add to it?. Why cause more misery than there already is in the world?. I ask you, what's the point of all of this?," Kid Flash asked, sweeping his hand in the air to indicate all the things in the room.

"Dear boy," the man said "you think I do not include myself on the list of monstrous beings?. I do, you know. I am only satiating my own savage appetite, just as everyone else in the world does."

"Well," Kid Flash growled "it ends here."

"Indeed," Kenneth Wagner lifted his hand from the rabbit and picked up a small device on the desk.

None of the Team knew what it was at first, and when they recognized the detonator it was already too late. A thumb press on the big red button and everything in the room erupted into smoking flames. And that included the remote transmitter.

"No!," Kid Flash scrambled for it, but Superboy hauled him back as the whole room burst into flames.

The last thing the Team saw as they fled from the burning room was the face of the henchman, shocked and horrified to realize that his employer had planned to murder him all along.


	18. Chapter 16

_06:03 PM_

Superboy returned to the flaming basement once the rest of the Team were out to search for the remote. But it had been reduced to ash. Not only that, but he found no sign of the old man, rabbit or the wing-backed desk chair. He'd suspected as much, and felt a pang of annoyance that he'd had to forcibly drag Kid Flash out of the burning building. Otherwise he might have been able to salvage something.

But he knew that probably wouldn't have happened. He emerged from the building and shook his head. The Team appeared crestfallen. Once again, they were returning to Robin with nothing to show for their efforts, or his for that matter.

What hope was left for Gotham now?. It seemed like none at all. What hope could there be?.

"Kenneth Wagner?," Aqualad asked.

"Gone," Superboy spat venomously.

"That is no surprise," Aqualad said evenly, though it was clear he too was upset by that tragedy.

Wagner might try something else since he was still alive, free and very wealthy. He'd planned to escape, even as he played the role of committing suicide for the sake of his master plan. But they had no way of finding him and, even if they had, there was no reason to think he might help them.

"Dammit!," Kid Flash shouted, striking his fist against the wall of the hotel "we were so close!."

There was a long silence as each of them tried to find a way out of this nightmare. The loss of one city wasn't much, of course. Not from a technical standpoint. There were other cities, other people, and more battles to be fought. Life would go on as it always had, indifferent to such minor tragedies as the loss of human life on the scale of everyone living in Gotham.

But those people had families who would have to live without them. Artemis herself had family in Gotham. Yet they all found themselves thinking about one person. Robin. Their reliable ally, their team mate, their friend, their brother. For they, in their own way, were a sort of family. The loss of even one of their number hit them like a physical blow. What would they do without him?. Go on, of course.

Deep inside they all knew that. But they didn't want to go on without him. They didn't even want to realize that they could, and would, continue even if Robin should die today. It made each of them feel indescribably awful to know that, should their friend die, they would just go on without him.

They weren't normal people, who could just shut down because they lost a loved one. They couldn't just give themselves up to depression and grief. They had to keep on going, for the mission. Villains didn't take a vacation because heroes needed time to sort their feelings. That's not how life worked. The world simply doesn't care about your precious feelings.

"Well," Miss Martian said finally, with a heavy sigh "I suppose we should go and tell Robin."

None of them wanted to do that. Though none voiced the notion out loud, they were all tempted to just stay away from Gotham until it was all over. It would be easier that way. Easier, but wrong. No, they had to go back. They had to tell Robin that they'd failed, that his city was doomed.

_I bet he knew all along, _Kid Flash thought miserably as they trudged to where they'd left the bioship, _he knew this whole thing was a waste of time. But he didn't want to crush our hope. Typical Bat move._

* * *

The Team got something of a shock when they returned and were unable to reach Robin. They couldn't at first imagine where he might have gone. That is, until Superboy saw the pile of dead birds just beyond the filter-shield. He'd forgotten those birds, and so had the rest of them.

"You don't suppose...," Superboy said, nodding meaningfully towards the birds.

"He wouldn't!," Miss Martian exclaimed, but Kid Flash disagreed.

"He would," Kid Flash said quietly "for his city, Robin would do anything."

"We shouldn't have told him about those damn birds," Superboy growled.

"Probably wouldn't have made any difference," Kid Flash told him, shrugging almost indifferently "he'd have figured it out sooner or later. He's a detective, remember?. He detects. It's what he _does_."

"He might have at least waited for us to get back," Artemis said, crossing her arms "shown at least a little bit of faith in our ability to do our job."

"Why should he?," Kid Flash asked "we've done nothing but spin our wheels all day. Nothing we've done has helped at all, so why should it start now?. Anyway there's a time limit on this. If Robin thought he had a way to save the city, it was a smart thing to try it sooner rather than later."

"He'll only get himself killed. He doesn't have super speed, you know," Superboy observed.

"Neither did the birds," Kid Flash retorted, almost angrily, though it was really because he was afraid.

"He doesn't have a thousand tries," Superboy was unmoved by Kid Flash's display of emotion "two out of hundreds means they failed most of the time. Robin fails once... and he's dead."

"Robin's always had an impeccable sense of timing," Artemis reminded Kid Flash, giving Superboy an angry look, which prevented him from making further comment.

Kid Flash felt badly enough without Superboy "helping". Without even really thinking about it, Artemis put her arm around Kid Flash. KF was in such a state that he hardly even noticed, and didn't think to make a joke about it.

Kid Flash didn't look at her, but instead looked mournfully at the giant bubble of energy, that damned purple bubble with its crimson shield to protect it. He hated it. He didn't think he'd ever hated anything so much in his entire life. He despised it with every fiber of his being.

"Maybe...," Kid Flash said after a long moment's thought "maybe he doesn't have to."

"What are you thinking?," Artemis asked quietly, but Kid Flash didn't answer.

Instead he ran off to where he and The Flash had earlier set up their equipment for trying to figure the device out. Because they were beyond the boundary of the field, their electrical equipment still worked fine. Kid Flash took some measurements of the bubble, which was slightly more oval than round, and managed to pinpoint the exact center of it.

He wasn't sure why he hadn't thought of this before. With his superior speed, Kid Flash could probably get through the barrier without damage. Not only was he physically faster, but his ability to perceive things was also accelerated, which was the only way he managed not to run into things most of the time. His trouble was always that he could see things, but couldn't stop before hitting them.

He also had an awful habit of looking where he wanted to go, instead of at the path which would take him there. Fortunately, that was hardly going to be an issue here and now.

"What are you doing?," Artemis demanded, but Kid Flash ignored her.

The Team exchanged glances, as they realized what Kid Flash intended to do.

"You can't. Can you?," Miss Martian asked uncertainly.

"I can if I time it right," Kid Flash replied absently, he'd barely heard her "If Robin thinks he can do it, there's no reason in the world I shouldn't be able to."

"Except that Robin is capable of greater self-control and precision than you," Aqualad said "as the birds have proven, speed is not the issue."

"Don't you think I know that?!," Kid Flash snapped, then became absorbed by watching the timing of the electric currents once more.

"This is unwise," Aqualad said "in this instance, I do not believe there is anything you can do that Robin could not accomplish just as well."

"But...," Kid Flash trailed off.

He remembered now the unbridled fury he'd felt coming from Robin at being displayed as a pitiable creature by Kenneth Wagner. The fury and pain Robin had felt then had not been for his city, no, it had been a moment of pure selfishness. Selfishness for which Robin could easily be forgiven. Robin had been angry because he did not want anyone's pity or sympathy.

He was one of those who wore masks, those heroes who must be more than mere mortals to the public and the enemies which they fought. Robin, more than anyone, relied upon his reputation to unsettle his enemies, because he was only human.

But he wasn't "just human" was he?. No. Robin had done the impossible more times than Kid Flash could count, had laughed when the odds were against him, and positively delighted in the art of defying gravity and flinging himself joyously into the very heart of danger.

This Kid Flash had allowed himself to forget. And that was worse than his physically injuring Robin could ever be. To think of Robin as helpless or incapable was the cruelest thing Kid Flash could possibly have done to his friend.

Aqualad was, as usual, quite right. This wasn't about land speed. This was about precise timing. And nobody knew better than Kid Flash how very precise Robin could be. They had sparred with one another many times, and Robin almost invariably came out on top, in spite of the fact that he was ever so much slower. That too was something Kid Flash had permitted himself to forget.

"Right," Kid Flash sighed, nodding more to himself than the others "Rob can do this."

"And if he can't...," Artemis dared to ask.

"Then I'll be there to finish the job," Kid Flash replied, his voice utterly cold.

Without giving any further notice, Kid Flash suddenly ran at the barrier. His timing, for once, was nearly perfect. He felt a little singed once he got to the other side, but was otherwise unharmed. Of course, the Team couldn't see that. They knew only that he'd disappeared.

"Pig-headed idiot," Artemis said, though there was more fear than anger in her tone.

"No. He was right," Aqualad replied "if Robin does fail, someone else must succeed. We cannot allow Gotham to fall. At least, not now, in this way. If we do, Kenneth Wagner wins a great victory. He will have succeeded in doing more than felling a city, you know."

This could not be denied, but the others felt that they didn't want to discuss it, so they said nothing.

* * *

Kid Flash, meanwhile, had made a beeline for the location of the device. The first thing he noticed was the precipitous temperature drop on this side. It was very cold in Gotham now.

It took him a bit to find a way of accessing the tunnels under the ground. He'd brought a flashlight with him, and it would be sometime before the batteries were drained (an issue he didn't presently know about). He didn't break stride as he practically fell down the stairs and careened into the tunnels.

But it wasn't as simple as all that. In his rush to get there, he'd forgotten to look up the layout of the tunnels. That was usually Robin's job anyway, he was the one who carried maps. That meant a lot of running up one tunnel and down another for Kid Flash.

All this running around gave him time to think. And that, in its turn, gave him time to regret. He realized now what a blow it must have been to Robin's pride to have his arm broken in the freak accident. And how Kid Flash's groveling apologizing had only made things worse, by putting emphasis on how badly and easily Robin had been hurt by his super-powered friends.

It came to KF how much it would hurt if the Team started trying to baby Robin. And how damaging it would be to his ability to work if the Team didn't have faith in his ability to stand by them and do his bit for the mission. If they were constantly trying to protect him and make sure he didn't get hurt.

Kid Flash was suddenly absurdly glad that Robin hadn't recovered yet, and hadn't had to suffer that humiliation in addition to everything else. And it was there, running blindly around in the underground of Gotham, that Kid Flash resolved never to let it enter his thoughts that Robin was weak again.

Robin was human, but at the very heart of it all, he was the strongest of them. Maybe even the best of them. Certainly a better hero, and human being, than Kid Flash had ever been. At least, these were the thoughts that Kid Flash now had. Whether or not it was true is open to interpretation.


	19. Chapter 17

_07:17 PM_

Twelve hours ago, Robin had entered these tunnels for the first time. This, he hoped, would be his final visit, at least for today. Looking at the unrefined, but deadly shield between him and his goal, he thought of a more profound hope. He hoped that he would live long enough to get out of this place.

One might expect him to have thought of Kid Flash in that moment, perhaps wishing his friend were there now. But he didn't. Nor in that moment did he think of the Team, or how much they might need him or miss him if he was gone. He did not even think of Batman, as much a father to him as his birth father had ever been, whose way of showing he cared was by being a relentless critic.

No, he thought of Alfred. And how very much he wanted to be there when the butler came back home. Alfred was not like everyone else. He knew death as well as they did, to be sure. But he did not invite it into his house, and it was likely he wished Batman and Robin did not either. And now he was in the hospital, because neither of them had been there when he needed them. What Robin felt then could not be precisely called guilt, but it was distant kin. And he was determined to be there when Alfred came back home. More than anything, Robin just wanted to go home.

He wanted to see the sky again, to feel the wind, rain or shine it made no difference, just so long as it was there. For the first time, he became consciously aware of what had sent the entire city into a tailspin. The sun, the stars, the sky... they were gone. It wasn't like being underground, as he was now. That was different. Spending weeks underground would not do what one day without sky above ground had. The wrong _must_ be put right.

"I will not lose this city," Robin hissed under his breath.

Milo didn't hear him, and wouldn't have said anything if he had. It was not his place. He stood off to the side, watching Robin and wondering if there was anything he could do now besides wait, and wonder what Robin meant to do about the barrier between himself and the device.

Robin, for his part, was concentrating. He needed to know exactly where and when gaps in the barrier would appear. He needed to have the timing exactly right. There would be no practice run, no retry. It wasn't like video games where you constantly respawn or get three lives. No. He had but one life. If he had to give it -which he might well have to do before all this was over- at the very least it was going to mean something when it happened. He was going to finish this, even if it also finished him.

He had not left his own injuries out of account. The beating he'd taken today would try to slow him down, he could already feel stiffness creeping in as it often does soon after an injury. He did a few experimental rolls to make sure of his own flexibility.

Milo stood well aside for this. As Robin's first roll was towards him, he mistakenly thought that the boy might be coming after him for some reason. After that, he was merely puzzled about what Robin was doing. He decided not to ask.

When Robin stood up again, he was aware that the tunnel was colder than it had been last time he was here. His breath, and Milo's, frosted in the air and chills crept up and down their spines. Above, Gotham was now likely freezing over.

Robin was ready. He locked his eyes on his entry point, and began to count, knowing the exact time when the window would open up. It was so brief and arrived so abruptly that he knew he couldn't see it until too late. He had to go while it still looked as if he didn't have a way through.

_Now, Robin. Go now._

He would later wonder the voice he heard in his head was his own, or someone else. Either way, it spurred him into immediate action. He launched rolled, and felt the disconcerting tickle of the filter, briefly sensed the oncoming searing of the shield, and then he was through.

He landed in a crouch, panting as though exhausted. The first thing he noticed was the oppressive heat. The machine in this little mini-bubble was generating a lot of heat, and there was nowhere for it to go. More than that of course was the fact that Robin had come directly from near-freezing to boiling hot.

The heat was disorienting and dizzying. Robin swayed slightly where he crouched, eyes half-closed as his system tried to absorb the shock in this abrupt change of environment. The mini-filter was actually less of a filter and more of a spiderweb, if one counted the electric shield as a spider.

Milo, on the other side, could still be seen and heard by Robin.

"What happened?. Are you alright!?," Milo shouted, but Robin barely turned his head in Milo's direction.

He knew he had to get up, to act quickly, because his body was rejecting this change of circumstance. It was as if a heatstroke victim had suddenly been plunged into ice water, only in reverse. The human body does not react well to sudden, complete changes of temperature. But it's not easy to convince yourself to move when you're overheated.

Robin managed it, though he less walked and more staggered, then kind of fell against the device. He had to hold onto it to keep from falling. It was at this point he realized he was half-blinded. There was light in the chamber he hadn't noticed before and the night vision was getting all skewed.

He snatched off the goggles and cast them aside, then set to work removing panels so he could see the wiring underneath, and try to figure out what connected to what. It was worse than he expected. All the wires were the same red color, it was nearly impossible to tell one from the other and he had to figure out both where they started and where they ended by feeling their entire length, then notching the protective coating somewhere to make sure he could tell which was which when he was done.

It wasn't easy. Tension and heat induced sweat poured off him, his hands shook and he was more than once tempted to remove his gloves because they suddenly seemed much too large for operations such as this. He knew it wouldn't help, because his hands were so sweaty he'd probably drop the knife and wires both. And then where would he be?.

As it was, he dropped the knife anyway.

"Dammit!," he awkwardly knelt down to pick it up.

His casted arm made this difficult, not to mention blurring vision and shaking from the incredible heat. He'd caught the knife up when the exposed bit of skin between gauntlet and sleeve made contact with the metal plating of the device. With an agonized yelp, Robin lurched away as pain shot through his arm like a lightning bolt. He knew what had happened, but couldn't stop the reflexive action.

He stumbled, nearly fell, regained his balance and went back to the device. Amazingly, he still had the knife. What had happened was that the hot metal had acted almost like a branding iron, burning flesh on contact. It hurt like anything, but Robin knew it wasn't life threatening. The real threat was in the heat which had made the metal that way.

Robin's mask came into service, keeping sweat from dripping into his eyes, just as his gloves prevented things from slipping out of his hands (though they were shaking so badly it was hard to hold anything). And he needed all the help he could get.

The unlabeled switches and buttons and variety of wires all of a single color made it virtually impossible to figure out what would turn the device off and what would only make things worse. Besides which, Robin had a rough idea of how one of these things ought to be put together, but it wasn't long before he realized that how it _should_ be built and how it really _had _been built were two entirely different things.

_Why don't crazy people ever just take up making finger puppets?,_ Robin thought, then immediately answered his own question, _they do, but you never hear about those because they aren't a problem for anybody. They're just making finger puppets._

Unwittingly, Robin had hit upon something that Kenneth Wagner never had.

You don't hear in the news about a man who decided _not_ to get drunk and drive. You don't hear about the man who decided _not_ to rob a bank. You don't hear about the little girl who _didn't_ almost drown, or the hundred or so people who _didn't_ dive into the water to save her. You don't hear about a war that people decided _not_ to start. And you never hear about the number of times people _don't_ go around killing one another or taking their stuff. You don't hear about the father who gets up and goes to work everyday. No. You hear about the one who turned psychopath on his family, killed them all and then himself and the family dog. Kenneth Wagner had, in all likelihood, never discovered this phenomenon.

Robin had no illusions about humanity. He knew their evil, because he knew he himself was not above it. He simply chose not to behave in the most monstrous way possible. To him, there were many acts more heroic than what he was doing right now.

With his skills, he could break into any bank he wanted. He could kill anyone he didn't like. He could do practically anything he wanted. It was what he chose _not_ to do, just as much as what he chose _to_ do, that made him who and what he was. Saving the city, that was a small thing. It was easy to look at that and go "this matters" and try to do something. But little things like not cutting in line, not punching someone for having a smart mouth, not getting into an argument with non-vigilantes about where Batman was evil or not... those were the hard things to do.

And, in the grand scheme of things, they mattered every bit as much -if not more- than what he was doing now. He didn't think all of this out as he was trying to shut down the device. Of course not. This is because he already had thought about it, and settled in his mind what sort of a person he wanted to be. Not that he was perfect, of course not. But at least he got up every day and swore he'd do the best he could. Which is more than some people can say, and less than some others eventually do.

"Hey, KF," Robin didn't have to turn to notice his friend's arrival.

"How does he do that?," Milo wondered aloud, but Kid Flash ignored him.

"Rob," Kid Flash said by way of greeting "what's the hold up?."

"This system was designed by a lunatic, that's what the hold up is," Robin replied irritably.

"Need a hand?."

"Nah, I think I've almost got it. Besides, you couldn't do any good in here. You'd overheat in a minute trying to speed through," Robin told him.

Kid Flash was momentarily insulted, though this was mostly because Robin was entirely correct.

"There," Robin said finally, looking up from the wires and transferring his attention to the various knobs, dials, buttons and switches "that one should do it."

If he felt any uncertainty, Robin didn't show it. There was no hesitation in his movement when he flicked the switch. He was faced away from the other two, otherwise they would have seen him close his eyes, hold his breath, and pray it worked. But they didn't see that.

"How do we know if it worked?," Milo whispered after a moment, for this was a time when it seemed better to whisper than to speak aloud.

Kid Flash evidently felt the same way, because he whispered back "I'm not sure."

They were underground, so how would they know if the filter-shield had been turned off?. An instant later, they got their answer and very much wished they hadn't.

On top of the device, a little screen unfolded itself and then clicked on. Pictured was Kenneth Wagner, in that damnable chair (or one very much like it) and still holding the rabbit.

"So you finally have gotten around to succeeding. It's about time," the man said, rubbing between the rabbits ears as he gazed dispassionately upon the ruiner of his plans.

"You tried to destroy my city," Robin growled "you knew they'd freeze, or suffocate. Even if they didn't go for one another, you'd still have murdered them."

"You played your role brilliantly, Boy Wonder. The hero, conquering evil so the world can continue on as though nothing had happened. Nothing ever changes. And so, it is with no small amount of regret that we must now play out the final chapter of this story. You and I, the pictures of goodness and ill."

"What are you talking about?," Kid Flash asked, but went ignored.

Robin, however, whirled to look at the doorway he'd come through, and saw immediately what Wagner meant. In shutting off the main shield, he had completed the circuit which solidified the shield. He was now trapped, and something told him that there was no button or switch on the device in here with him which would turn it off. Wagner must have the key to that.

Kid Flash was only a beat behind him.

"No. No, no, no, oh no, no," he was shaking his head, starting towards the shield.

"Stop it!," Robin spat venomously "you had one job!. You still do!. I've done my part, why not do yours now!?. We're still a team, aren't we?."

Robin's eyes flashed, and his voice was very fierce. It snapped Kid Flash out of his temporary panic.

"Claros Dho," Kid Flash said, looking past Robin to the man's image on the screen "Lord Chaos."

The man laughed, and it was definitely one of those sinister laughs.

"You think me so easily found out?. You think me a Lord of Chaos?. No, child. That is word play for the simple minded, just as this illusion of an old man with a terminal illness and Alzheimer's is. Everything has gone as I have planned it out, but I am no witch."

"Bullshit," Robin growled "you couldn't have anticipated everything happening like this. It's only your own deranged mind which gave you advantage. You didn't plan to trap anyone in this room, it just so happened that it worked out that way."

"And here I believed you to be clever," Wagner laughed again "my motives are a thing you cannot comprehend, and my thoughts are greater than your feeble, if heroic, imagination."

"KF," Robin's voice was flat now, cold as it was when he felt that particularly deep kind of rage welling up inside him "go. End this. I'll be here when you get back."

"But...," Kid Flash didn't finish, because Robin turned on him with a flash of anger in his eyes, which seemed almost demonic courtesy of the purple and crimson energy barrier.

"_**Go**_."


	20. Chapter 18

_08:05 PM_

No sooner had Kid Flash left the room then Robin collapsed against the device. He slid down to a sitting position with his back against it, unmindful of its potential to burn him even through his cape and costume. He was overtaken by shaking and closed his eyes, trying to breathe deeply even though the air was so hot it seemed to scald his throat and lungs when he took it in.

"Robin!," Milo exclaimed, and would have run to the boy had the shield not barred his way.

"And now you see," Kenneth Wagner was still on the screen, his tone mocking now "that this is the true game of good and evil. The good must die so the weak can live another day. But it is always the darkness that wins in the end. David may have defeated Goliath, but it is the giants who will triumph at the end of all things. It is the fate of the universe to be that way."

"That's not true!," Milo shouted "shut up!," but Robin seemed of a different mind.

"Maybe," Robin said, his voice barely a whisper.

His eyes were open now, staring at a wall rather than Milo or the old man with his rabbit. He didn't move anything other than his eyes, though he swallowed thickly now and then, like he was having trouble breathing. It had to be the heat, Milo thought, but he wasn't sure.

"Maybe that's true. If it is, so be it. But that doesn't change my role in your so-called play. Maybe it's no use trying to save the world. But I figure that doesn't mean the world needs saving any less. Maybe what we do isn't enough and won't come to anything in the end. But I refuse to stand there at the end of all things and be forced to admit that I didn't even try. So where does that leave you, Claros Dho?."

"You speak as though there were a God of the universe, an ultimate judge," Wagner said.

"You do too," Robin pointed out "it was you who mentioned David and Goliath. Let's say there is a God, a judge. Clearly the good things we do can't outweigh the bad things we do. I know that as well as you do, and it would be stupid to think otherwise. But do you want to go before God Himself and say you didn't even bother trying to do what he wanted?. He, The God of all Creation stands before you and you can only say that his wishes weren't worth your time. Assuming there is a God, of course."

"And why should I care what God thinks of me?."

"I can't answer that for you," Robin replied neutrally.

"And what of you?. Do you believe in an all-mighty Creator?."

"Does it really matter to you?. Because I don't think it does," Robin told him "so why should I give you an answer when you don't really want one?. That would be a waste of my time, and yours."

"How very typical," Wagner scoffed "we get near a discussion worth having and you shy away from it."

"I wouldn't if you were actually interested in an exchange of ideas," Robin explained "but all you want to do is fight. You believe you're in the right, and you don't want to hear anything anyone says. You think you know everything, don't you?. But... have you forgotten... I am not alone..."

Abruptly, Wagner turned off his screen.

"Why did you tell him about your friend?," Milo asked "he could have had the element of surprise!."

"It was a stupid conversation anyway," Robin said, as though that explained all "and KF knows what he's doing. He'll get the job done right this time. Count on it."

That was the last thing Robin said for some time, for it was at this point that he passed out. Milo tried to wake him several times, but nothing he said roused the exhausted young hero. As Robin had said, he'd done his part. It was Kid Flash's turn. Robin's life was now in his friend's hands.

This may have frightened Kid Flash, but it did not greatly concern Robin himself. For Robin believed himself to be responsible for his part in any mission, and for the safety of the Team. But, when it came to his own safety, he was content to leave that in the capable hands of his friends, whom he trusted fully. He had made peace with the fact that his life would often hang by a thread held by one or the other of them. And he saw no reason why that should bother him.

* * *

Kid Flash couldn't really hit his stride until he was out of the tunnels. As soon as he was, he ran as he probably never had before. Seconds counted, he knew, and that somehow scared him. He felt stupid, and maybe he should have, for not having figured it out sooner.

Firstly, Robin hadn't needed his help to shut down the device. Of course not. Secondly, of course Wagner went to the original Hotel Claros Dho. Why wouldn't he?. Robin had sent Kid Flash to stop Wagner, and he'd failed miserably. Instead of trying again, he'd tried to take what he now recognized as the "easy route". Shutting down the device. That's what he'd really wanted to do. But that wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. No, he was supposed to stop Kenneth Wagner. No wonder Robin was angry with him, as he hadn't been those weeks ago when Kid Flash had caused his arm to be broken.

That had been an accident, one which Robin had forgiven almost on the spot. This time, Robin had told Kid Flash what he wanted -what he _needed_- and Kid Flash had let him down. And now Robin might pay for that mistake with his life. And all because Kid Flash had tried to be Robin's protector instead of what he really was meant to be: his team mate.

Robin didn't need anyone to hold his hand. He needed someone to help him, of course. But he didn't need anyone to lift the burden from him, he needed someone to help share it. That's what being a team meant to him, and should have meant to Kid Flash as well.

_I get it now. I understand now,_ he thought as he ran, _I understand._

He can hardly be blamed for being a little afraid, knowing what he knew now. What if he was now too late because he'd run for the tunnels instead of figuring out where Kenneth Wagner had gone?. He should have suspected a trap, Robin undoubtedly had. And Robin had trusted Kid Flash, and the rest of the Team, to deal with the mastermind. They hadn't, and what if it was too late now?.

Aside from which, the whole Team together had failed, and now there was no time to go back for them. Kid Flash had to do this all on his own. That was somewhat daunting.

But he remembered the anger in Robin's voice when he found Wagner to be still on the loose. He remembered the pain-laden fury Robin had been unable to fully contain when Wagner had presented him as a thing of pity. And he remembered the almost peacefully resigned look in Robin's eyes when he had promised Kid Flash that he would still be there when KF got back from this mission.

By the time he reached the hotel, Kid Flash had put his private fears aside. At the doors, he picked up the courage he used every time he went into battle, and by the time he'd gone down the stairs (for the building's layout seemed to be the same) he had also located that maddening cockiness which was his by right. Having so collected himself, Kid Flash was now ready for whatever the old man (and he did think of Kenneth Wagner as nothing more than a screw-brained old man) threw at him.

Somehow, he wasn't surprised to find a shield barring his way instead of an actual door. Kenneth Wagner was turned to face him, looking every bit as menacing as a ravenous wolf in spite of his being a shrunken figure in that giant chair, and also in spite of having a fluffy white rabbit as a pet. Truth be known, the rabbit looked a bit cannibalistic itself.

"Now what do you expect to do?," the old man asked, in his creaky voice, which was cracked in more than one way "you can't just run through, you can't just break through a wall either. What was your great plan, you who think yourself so inadequate a human being that you had to drink fairy juice and gain superior speed in order to justify your own existence to yourself?."

What Kid Flash hated most about that statement was not, as one might suspect, the implication that he had used magic rather than science to make himself as he was. It was the indication that he wouldn't be good enough if he didn't have his powers. And why that made him so mad was because he really believed it.

Worse, of course was when he had applied his opinion of himself to Robin, who lacked any super-powers. Robin didn't need them. Kid Flash felt sure that he himself did. After all, what was he without his amazing speed?. His speed was everything to him.

Had he possessed any less strength of character than he did, Kid Flash might well have blamed that super-speed for Robin's accident. After all, if he hadn't been able to run so fast, then he wouldn't have run so fast, and then Robin wouldn't have been hurt. But he counted himself fully responsible for using his own abilities irresponsibly. Taking a child's toy away will not teach him not to break it, any more than removing a dog's leash will teach him to respect it. To blame the object is an error in judgment. What must be counted relevant is the choice that was made as to how to use the object.

While one could argue that it should never have happened, Kid Flash not so foolish as to continue on that track now he'd been set straight. He knew that he couldn't undo what he'd done, and that there was nothing he could do to make it as if Robin's arm had never broken. The evidence would be there always, even if you couldn't see it. But that was all over and done with. What he must now do was ensure that, though the opportunity might again present itself, the actual events were never repeated.

One must be careful of the things they treasure, be they people or objects, and respectful of their own gifts and abilities. To use such things carefully, or take them for-granted would only result in losing the precious things which made life so worth living. It was a hard lesson, and one Kid Flash recalled he had learned before, and would probably have to relearn at a later date.

Such is the lot of humanity, having to learn the same things over and over, and always thinking once we have that we've finally gotten it this time.

"I don't need my speed to take care of you," Kid Flash said "I need only what I was born with."

"And what might that be?."

Kid Flash was kneeling down now, putting something against the frame for the door as he talked.

"How do you think I got my speed?. By accident?. No, I used my head. As you should have used yours," he stood up then and stepped back.

Kenneth Wagner looked puzzled for a moment, but the moderate explosion which followed replaced the confusion with shock and a certain amount of horror. For the shield blocking the door was held in place by that spider-web filter which had also protected the larger device.

It was designed to fit a very specific space. When Kid Flash put explosives on the door frame, they blew the doorway wider, causing the device to short out as it tried to do more than it was designed to.

Kid Flash stepped over the now harmless mini-device.

"And now," he growled menacingly "you will give me the controller for the one back in the tunnels."


	21. Chapter 19

_09:03 PM_

Milo saw the energy barrier drop. At first, it just looked like a glitch, and unevenness in the field. But then, like a soap bubble, it popped in a flash of colorful sparkles. Milo didn't dwell on it, he got up from where he'd been sitting on the floor and at once went to where Robin lay as though he were lifeless.

A wave of heat washed across Milo, as though the hot air was frantic to escape, to spread out, to rise as heat is meant to. It felt just like opening a hot oven, only instead of just opening it, Milo stuck his head inside it. Actually, he stepped inside it, but you can't normally do that with an oven.

He didn't really think, otherwise he might not have done it, but Milo knelt down and lifted the still form of the Boy Wonder into his arms. He then stood up with his burden, turned and headed back the way he'd come. He didn't even think about being lost, he just remembered the way back up to the surface, it was as if he'd always known it but had never realized it.

Robin was lighter than Milo had expected, and he seemed smaller too. Even though Milo had spent the evening with Robin, the boy's energy and determination had made him seem larger than life. But he was so small, and felt so fragile that Milo was almost afraid he might accidentally crush his burden.

As Milo made his hurried way through the dark, Robin didn't stir, his head against Milo's shoulder, his shallow breathing warm against Milo's neck, constant reassurance that the young hero still lived. The small body was very warm, far warmer than it ought to have been. But the tunnels were cold, and so the heat soon seeped out of him. In fact, it was probably Milo's own body heat which prevented Robin from going into shock at this new change of temperature.

Though it had been a long, wearying day and Milo had missed his lunch, he felt stronger now than he had this morning when he'd woken up, before he'd noticed the sky was that sick purple color. In fact, maybe he felt stronger than ever before. For what he had done -and, more importantly, seen- had changed him. He hadn't consciously realized it, of course, because people rarely notice when they're profoundly changed. But he felt it, and was better for it.

He had seen someone fight, keep on fighting, even when it all seemed so hopeless. Robin had never lost sight of his goal, nor wavered in his determination to save Gotham, even when it seemed as though all of Gotham wanted nothing more than to see him dead. Even as he admitted that his own attempts at saving the world might be in vain, still Robin didn't falter. He just kept trying, regardless of what he felt, what was done to him or what anyone said. That was something to see.

Milo thought of all those things he'd tried and then given up on, and all those things he'd simply been too afraid to even attempt. He'd told himself it didn't matter, because anyone in his position would do the same thing. He was only human after all.

But when he'd picked Robin up off the ground he knew, with startling certainty, that here too was someone only human. Someone who also made mistakes, someone who was a mere mortal, just as he was. And yet Robin had defied that mortal weakness, and done something truly great. And forced Milo to wonder if he'd ever done anything like that, even on a much smaller scale.

He came to think that maybe he hadn't. But that didn't hurt as much as it might have, because he realized that he was still alive. Gotham still existed, still breathed, it's people relatively unchanged, and the world was still spinning. It wouldn't be easy to change the way he lived, Milo knew, but he wanted to do it. And he wouldn't let himself think "it's too late now" anymore.

Milo had shed something else in the tunnels, which he also didn't notice was gone at first. He'd lost his guilt. He sensed that Robin had forgiven him, had forgiven him long ago. And, like Kid Flash, Milo couldn't change the mistake he'd made. But he could say, with trembling confidence "never again".

That's not to say he was suddenly completely different, or that he never made any more mistakes, or that he became a superhero, or anything of the like. Of course not, that would be silly.

No, a person doesn't change themselves or their life all in one night. This was merely where the change for Milo started. In this place, on this night, carrying a small hero in his arms.

At last, Milo noticed that there was something funny going on with his night vision goggles. He removed them, and found he could see light up ahead. Not much light, no, but some. He hurried towards it, careful not to stumble and fall. He couldn't afford to do that while carrying Robin.

Then he was climbing the stairs up to street level, and his steps quickened until he almost did fall, for he saw the best thing he could ever have imagined, only he hadn't known until now how beautiful it really was. With the city's power out, the sky showed up not as an amorphous black thing, but as a magnificent blanket of indigo, dotted with a thousand and more tiny points of magical light.

The sky had returned at last, and it felt as though a lifetime had passed since Milo had seen it.

It felt like it happened immediately, but Milo couldn't judge how long he stood staring up at the sky, when Robin at last stirred, turning his face skyward. Milo looked down and saw the stars reflected in the masked eyes, and he couldn't begin to guess the thoughts of the hero.

"The sky's right again," Robin said quietly, and spoke no more for a time because a breeze sprang up and he closed his eyes to drink that in, having clearly missed it very much.

"My God isn't it beautiful?," Milo breathed.

Robin didn't answer him. He didn't have to. Without being asked, Milo knew it was time to put him down. Robin slid easily to the ground, and took hold of the stair railing until he got his balance back. He breathed deeply of the night air, and it seemed to Milo that he could fairly see life flowing back into Robin's body, as though he was suddenly alight with colors which had been drained by the absence of the wind, sun, sky and stars.

At this point, the moon made its appearance, a dramatic curtain of wispy clouds falling away from it and skittering out of view as if they were embarrassed to be there.

Just then Kid Flash arrived, quite out of breath. Having seen to it that Kenneth Wagner was arrested, he'd been in a tearing hurry to make sure that Robin was alright. He slid to a stop, leaning against a light post, gasping for breath. Robin gazed impassively at his friend. The fear left Kid Flash's eyes as he assured himself that Robin was definitely still alive.

"The sky's come back," Robin said, once Kid Flash seemed to be himself again "I missed it."

Kid Flash looked up at the sky, he hadn't noticed it was purple when he'd entered the bubble, nor had he noticed it had cleared when he'd been going to stop Wagner, so he didn't understand the significance of the statement until much later, when he took the time to think about it.

"You okay?," he asked, wondering if the heat had fried Robin's brain.

"Naturally," Robin replied, as though the question offended him (and maybe it did) "why shouldn't I be?. You did your job alright, and so did I. Mission accomplished, and everybody goes home."

"Really?. That's all you've got to say about it?. And who's your friend?," Kid Flash asked the last taking note of Milo for perhaps the first time.

"Him?. Oh, he shot me earlier," Robin replied with a dismissive shrug and mischievous gleam in his eyes "and I haven't been able to get rid of him since. Never caught his name though."

Kid Flash took the news that this man had shot Robin in stride. He knew Robin's sense of humor and could tell he liked this man for some reason. And, now he looked closer, Kid Flash did recognize Milo from the film Wagner had aired earlier.

"You shouldn't go around being friendly with people who hurt you," Kid Flash observed.

"Why not?. I'm friends with you, aren't I?. And it works out fine for me."

"Most of the time," Kid Flash said somewhat ruefully, though he couldn't manage to reclaim the gloomy feeling of guilt he'd been allowing to eat at him the last few weeks, nor did he try.

"Anyway," Robin said, rolling his eyes "he's no more dangerous than you are, probably less so."

"Doesn't look like much, does he?," Kid Flash said, now looking at Milo with a sarcastically appraising eye.

Milo did not appreciate their humor, and stayed silent in the hopes that they'd just go away. He was tired now, and he wanted to go home, absorb the day's events and get to work putting the city right first thing tomorrow morning, right along with everyone else.

"Are you sure you're alright?," Kid Flash asked soberly.

"Ask me that again and I'll kick you into next week," Robin warned, though it was with an even temper "although, now I think about it... I'm starving."

Robin hadn't eaten anything all day. This would explain why he was hungry now. Kid Flash, of course, was always, _always_ hungry.

"If you're hungry, you can't possibly be too badly hurt," Kid Flash observed, and Robin agreed.

The meeting dissolved almost at once. Both Kid Flash and Robin bid Milo farewell, scampered off when he wasn't looking and went to report all that had happened to the Team, who had thought things were all put right when the shield around Gotham went down.

Milo, for his part, began the walk back to the police station, where he would struggle to figure out how to report all of this, which wouldn't be easy, as there was certainly no shorthand for following a vigilante into a tunnel where they disarmed a device built by a crazy old man with a pet rabbit.

* * *

The Team greeted Kid Flash and Robin solemnly and listened to all they had to say. It was only after the story was told in full that congratulations were in order and the feeling of accomplishment settled over all of them. They didn't go and celebrate, as one might imagine, for this was just a small victory, and only one of many. For them, it was just another day at work. An especially long day at work, but just another Tuesday nonetheless.

It wasn't long before they all headed for home, where they would rest up for the next mission, knowing it could be right around the corner. They were always on call, and one victory didn't mean another challenge wasn't coming their way at the speed of light. You never knew how much time you had.

None realized that tonight more than Robin, who certainly hadn't known when he went to bed last night that he would wake up the next morning fighting for his city, and for his very life.

Finally, only Robin and Kid Flash were left, sitting on a Gotham rooftop and staring up at the stars.

"I am... _so_ sorry," Kid Flash said, breaking the silence.

"What for?. Don't tell me your still kicking yourself over my arm?. I told you it was okay."

"No, not for that. For how I acted after... some of the things I said... and thought."

"You're going to apologize for thinking now?. What is it, National Apology Month?."

"Shut up and let me finish," Kid Flash said impatiently "when you got hurt, it made me realize that you're not like the rest of us. I'd never really thought about how you don't have any powers."

"Neither does Artemis," Robin interrupted, but Kid Flash ignored him.

"I mean, I never thought about how you're just human. And I know I've made jokes about your size and age, but I'd never really... seriously thought about either of them. Now I know why you get so bent out of shape when I point out how tiny you are."

Robin's eyes flashed in anger at mention of his diminutive size, but he held his tongue.

"It's because you don't need us to protect you. The past few weeks, I've been thinking about how easy it was to... well... break you, like glass... how fragile ordinary humans are. It made me forget...," he momentarily lost his voice, but then got it back "I forgot how many tight situations we've gotten ourselves into, how much danger we've faced together. All the missions we've been on, the enemies we've fought. Side by side, none weaker than the others. And, for that, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let myself forget so easily."

Robin's eyes had softened as Kid Flash spoke, and now he startled his friend by laughing.

"Is that all?," Robin said amidst his own helpless laughter, and he gave KF's shoulder a playful shove "you're worried about my feelings?. My feelings!?. Of all things to worry about..." he couldn't finish because he was still laughing hysterically and it was starting to hurt his ribs.

"I'm serious!," Kid Flash snapped, then asked "what are you laughing for?."

"I'm sorry," Robin apologized, but it was a bit before he could catch his breath enough to go on "but I've spent the day getting the crap kicked out of me, and you're worried about something so irrelevant and easily repairable as... as," he stopped himself from laughing long enough to finish "_feelings_!."

Kid Flash blinked and was silent for a moment. Then he grinned and allowed himself to laugh too. It was funny, when he looked at it that way. It was also another reminder for him. Robin had never been one to care what other people thought of him, why start now?.

"Okay...," Robin said, finally getting his laughter under control "Okay. Well, I don't know about you. But I, for one, am going home. I am going to eat some dinner, and sleep until the next crisis," he arose, shaking his head and grinning once more "feelings," he muttered with amusement "I suppose next you'll be worrying if I'm eating healthy foods."


	22. Chapter 20

_10:15 PM_

Robin was a little unsettled to find that the Batcave was not wholly dark. He proceeded with grave caution until he spotted Alfred polishing the desk, a bandage around his head and a patient expression on his face. Robin resisted the urge to run up to him. It wasn't a bat-like thing to do.

"Good evening, sir," Alfred said, without looking up.

"Alfred," Robin nodded, unable to keep a smile off his face "and how did you manage to escape the hospital staff?. I thought they wanted to keep you overnight or something."

"Oh they were quite busy," Alfred explained "far too busy to bother about me. So I decided to get up and go home. And here I am now."

"You're as bad as the rest of us," Robin said, shaking his head, but delighted to see his friend safe and well nonetheless.

He sank wearily into the desk chair and sighed, half-closing his eyes.

"We won, Alfred," he said, his voice barely a whisper "we've taken Gotham back again."

The way he said it spoke volumes. Gotham wasn't a city you could win and put on a shelf. No, it was like liberty, like freedom. It had to be won and re-won many, many times over. And people were more often than not completely unappreciative of the struggle to make sure they went on for another day.

"Yes...," Alfred murmured, and then added almost hopefully "about the hooligans in the mansion earlier..."

"Oh them," Robin said, his eyes snapping open "I forgot all about them. I suppose they're still on the loose. I'll have to go catch them."

"Well," Alfred told him "not tonight, I shouldn't think. You've done enough work for one day. The hooligans will undoubtedly still be hooligans in the morning."

"Yes," Robin said with a somewhat embarrassed yawn "I suppose they will. But I don't plan to go to bed just yet," he stretched and got up stiffly, he didn't really feel like moving.

"Why ever not?," Alfred wanted to know.

"Because I didn't get any breakfast this morning and I'm hungry. That's why. No, no, you go on with your dusting. I'll get my own dinner, thank you."

As Robin took off his mask, he realized he'd been wearing it since four o'clock this morning. It felt good to at last shed that identity, although it was a very odd time of day for it. He finished changing clothes and set about the important task of finding himself some very much overdue food.

* * *

Artemis slipped back to Gotham when nobody was looking. It all turned out quite well for her, because nobody ever thought to question her further about her so-called "cousin". She too felt a little bit strange hanging up her costume in the dead of night. But she forgot all about it as soon as her head hit her pillow. She was asleep almost at once.

Miss Martian and Superboy were much the same, although they were asleep before she was since they lived at Mount Justice. Aqualad went home and probably slept, and so did Kid Flash (after eating all the food he could find in the house). For them, the mission and the day were both over.

* * *

Kenneth Wagner, who had been arrested on charges not yet clearly defined, did not actually live through the night. Whatever he'd said, he _was_ terminally ill. The only thing odd about that was the fact that in the morning when an officer came to check on him, she found a white rabbit sitting on the dead man's chest. The rabbit he'd kept as a pet had, of course, been taken to the local shelter. That rabbit was gone, and this one shortly went hopping out of the police station (in spite of extensive efforts to capture the uncooperative beast). Nobody was sure what to make of that. The rabbit was never seen again.

* * *

Having finished his dusting, Alfred climbed the stairs and found Dick in the kitchen. There was a half-eaten sandwich on a plate on the table, but Dick wasn't likely to finish it. He'd put his arms on the table and rested his head on them for a minute, and at once gone to sleep.

Alfred decided against doing the dishes this evening. Very few had been dirtied over the course of the day anyway, so he might as well just leave them as they were for the night. About half an hour later the power came on (someone had been hard at work to make that happen), and the lights which had been on in the house flared to life- including the kitchen light.

Dick moaned at this interruption to his sleep, but woke up enough to stumble off to his bedroom, where the lights were off and the bed was much softer than a kitchen chair. He went back to sleep without ceremony, or even a thought for the oddity of sleeping through the night as he now intended to do.

_At least,_ he thought as he went back to sleep,_ I'm not bored anymore._

* * *

Milo had returned to the police station, where he found there was quite a bit of work to be done before he got to go home for the night. But Commissioner Gordon had the same idea as pretty much everyone else in Gotham (except the power companies), and that was to go home and sleep, then tackle it all in the morning. The riots had completely died away, seeing as there wasn't anything to riot about at the moment, and everything had suddenly become very docile and most people went home.

A well-meaning, but rather annoying, collection turned up at the station to turn themselves in, explaining (in detail) the rather impressive number of laws they had broken during the course of the day. Interestingly enough, Alfred's "hooligans" were among them, and were relieved to find out that they hadn't succeeded in killing the butler.

What this says about those individuals, or even humanity as a whole, is at best uncertain.

When Milo finally _did_ get to go home, he found himself unable to sleep. Like most people who have a profoundly life changing experience, he needed time to absorb it all. His brain was far too busy for him to sleep, even though he was more tired than he could ever remember being.

But he was also feeling almost wildly energized and free.

In the past, Milo had often lain awake at night, thinking about what his friends and family thought of him, worrying about whether or not he was doing the right thing. He realized now that what people thought or said didn't matter. And it didn't even really matter what he did with his life. It was how he did it. He couldn't just be halfhearted about things, he couldn't rush in and expect it to work out.

He had a lot to learn about his new way of living, and he decided he had to start somewhere. He'd always heard about David and Goliath (nearly everybody has), but he'd never read the actual story for himself. He'd heard it outlined, so he got all the references, but he didn't know what it was really about.

He decided that might be a good thing to look up, now that the power and internet were back up and running. And that is how Milo spent his night, because one story led to another right on 'til morning.

* * *

Alfred had spent most of the evening straightening the mansion out in an attempt not to think about the terrible danger he was in, not to think about Gotham's own self-destruction and most definitely not to think at all about what Dick was having to go through in order to save it. There were some valuables missing, of course. He didn't know it, but they would all be returned rather sooner than one might expect, seeing as the thieves had turned themselves in. He would get a phone call in the morning, asking him about the whole affair, but that didn't happen yet.

Since Dick went upstairs, Alfred decided that he would wash the dishes after all. Once that was done, he climbed the stairs and went to look in on Dick, as he sometimes did when Bruce was away. There was no good reason for it, he merely wanted to assure himself that the boy was still safe and well.

Dick was asleep in a heap on top of his sheets, having curled himself into a ball because he was cold, but not cold enough to actually wake up and do something about it.

Alfred went off down the hall and retrieved a blanket from a closet and draped that over the boy carefully. Dick stirred, shifted and then sighed in his sleep, but he didn't actually wake up.

Alfred left him there and went downstairs.

It was there that he met Bruce, just returning from his mission.

"You're back early," Alfred observed, recalling that it was supposed to be a multiple days mission.

Bruce grunted, but didn't explain. It was clear from his face that it had gone well, but something else was now obviously bothering him. Alfred waited.

"What on _Earth_ did Robin do to my city?," Bruce asked, keeping his voice low, as though he knew Dick was upstairs and asleep.

"That," Alfred said "is a story best saved for the morning."

"Long story?," Bruce guessed and Alfred nodded. "Alright...," Bruce managed to stifle a yawn "I'll see you in the morning." with that, he trudged off upstairs to locate his own bed.

"The morning," Alfred whispered to the departing figure "could be a very long way of, Master Bruce."

* * *

_Six weeks later..._

"What this?," Commissioner Gordon asked, looking up from the laptop Officer Milo Downy had brought in and placed on his desk "what am I looking at?."

"That, sir," Milo said with less pride than it probably sounds like "is my idea for a new system for our filing computers. I think the search engine features are especially improved."

"And you've been working on this for...," Commissioner Gordon adjusted his glasses to give Milo time to fill in the blank.

"The past six weekends, and a few hours every night after work," Milo replied almost breathlessly, as though recalling to mind all the hard work he'd been putting in.

He shifted nervously from one foot to the other while Commissioner Gordon looked it over. He was impressed to see that Milo had actually built the system, not just written out a proposal on paper and left it for someone else to actually create. He'd made sure it would work before presenting it. Though it was clear from his expression that he hadn't the faintest idea who to present it to, or even how to present it in the first place. For one, he didn't give Commissioner Gordon a guided tour.

This was clearly not necessary, as the design was actually pretty intuitive. Still, that's no way to impress executives. After all, most of them are thick as bricks, or that's what Gordon thought anyway.

"And you want to implement this?," Gordon asked, leaning back in his desk chair.

"Don't you?. Our system is so incredibly broken we can hardly find people when we know their names and where they live and what year they were born," Milo pointed out.

"I've never had any trouble with it," Gordon grunted uncooperatively.

"Begging your pardon, sir... but you've never had to use it," Milo said quietly.

This was quite true, and for a very good reason. Commissioner Gordon couldn't figure out how to find information in that blasted system as fast as most of the men under him could. It was a matter of practicality and also of profound loathing. He hated the GCPD computer system.

"Alright, let's say I'm sold. What guarantee do I have that no information will be lost when the new system is set up?," Commissioner Gordon asked.

"I'd do it myself, but... you see... I have to work," Milo shifted nervously.

"Now you're working on this," Gordon said, solving the problem neatly "get to it."

"Y-yes sir... thank you sir," Milo snatched up the laptop and fled the office without being dismissed.

"You won't be thanking me when you're through," Gordon told his office door.

But he was wrong. Milo was perfectly happy to put in the time and effort, and to troubleshoot whenever anything went wrong or wasn't understood. It turned out that maybe he was more of a techie than a police officer.

However, Milo did not quit his day job.


	23. Postlude

"_It is a wondrous human characteristic to be able to slip into and out of idiocy many times a day without noticing the change or accidentally killing innocent bystanders in the process."_ _-The Dilbert Principle _(Scott Adams)

* * *

A call from a frightened woman in the middle of the night about a man lurking outside her apartment found Milo and his partner going to investigate. It would have been nice to call everyone available, but such calls were so often pranks that they couldn't afford it, although there was something of a work around. Other cruisers would drift by until the matter was either resolved or dismissed, putting them in close proximity in case anything happened.

But those moments in a shootout where it's just you and the bad guys are like an eternity, and it doesn't take more than a second to find yourself shot and killed. Such situations were mercifully uncommon when compared with the number of calls the officers took in a given day.

"Go around back," Milo's partner said "I'll keep an eye out front."

Milo didn't really want to go around back, but someone had to do it so it might as well be him. He didn't hesitate or complain, he just up and did it, and sternly informed the fear in the back of his mind that it damn well better not get in his way.

He went around the side of the building, one hand on his gun (which was still holstered), the other loose but ready to grab a flashlight if it got too dark for him to see properly. Before long, he was out of sight of the street, utterly alone even though his partner was just around the corner.

He heard a noise overhead, a clattering like someone on the fire escape. Fired by adrenalin, he pulled his gun out of its holster and leveled it at the area above him, at the same time flicking on his light. Something moved in the light, like a shadow leaping back from the sun and he almost fired, checking himself only just in time as he recognized the distinctive red and black of Robin's costume.

"How is it that nobody ever looks up except when I'm up here?," Robin scoffed, nudging something at his feet.

And there, quite alive but wholly unconscious, was the "lurking man". Robin leaned down and picked something up with his gloved hands, an object Milo soon recognized as being a handgun. Robin examined it with clear disdain, as though guns were offensive solely because they were such primitive and simple weapons. He set it down and then, in one fluid movement, leaped most of the way down the fire escape until he was only a floor above Milo's head.

"Evening, officer. How goes the patrolling?."

"Just fine," Milo replied, having recovered himself and holstering his weapon.

"Good. I notice you've got a new computer system. Nice. Did you design it?."

"How did you-... wait, never mind, I don't want to know," Milo shook his head "I guess I did design it at that. Any suggestions for it?," but when he looked up Robin already seemed to be gone.

This wasn't the truth, however, because Robin's voice floated back as thought from an alternate dimension:

"Make a mobile version."

"Sure, David," Milo told the empty night "I'll do that."

* * *

"Oof!."

The cry was Robin's warning to duck, something he did with great alacrity. This was because Kid Flash, who had been sparring with Superboy, was hurtling through the air and flying straight for him. Robin ducked and watched with no small measure of amusement as Kid Flash bounced off the wall, rolled across the floor, then came to a stop, where he flailed around a bit before righting himself.

In fact, he found this so entertaining that Robin laughed at his friend's misfortune without really meaning to. Kid Flash didn't really mind, it wasn't an unkind laugh, and Robin did have the decency to remain silent until it was clear KF was unhurt aside from his pride.

"You think that's funny, do you?," Kid Flash grumbled, dusting himself off "why don't you try it sometime?. Superboy's wrung all of us out recently except for you."

"I'm game," Superboy put in "unless you're still nursing your 'war wounds'."

Robin's eyes flashed. Even though it was spoken in jest, the comment lit real anger inside him for a moment. He swiftly quashed it, because only a fool would go into a fight with emotions at the forefront of his consciousness, as any sensible person well knows.

A moment later, he'd slipped into a fighting stance, an eager fire in his eyes. In truth, Robin wasn't a hundred percent yet. But if he was well enough to rejoin the Team, he was certainly well enough to take on Superboy. He knew he didn't have to win, just put up a respectable fight.

But if there was one thing Robin hated, it was losing. And he had no intention of doing that.

"Hey guys, Robin's taken up sparring again!," Artemis shouted, having been audience to the last battle.

Aqualad and Miss Martian showed up shortly thereafter. Robin and Superboy looked as though they had been waiting for this, though in reality they'd been circling, measuring. Robin was getting back into the swing of things, and Superboy couldn't recall what sparring with the Boy Wonder was like.

Robin was often jokingly referred to as a cheater, since he had a veritable plethora of equipment to help him out, in addition to having had more years of experience than any of them, even though he was the youngest. Superboy did recall that actually catching and holding Robin was a frank impossibility.

It would be like trying to catch a fish with salad tongs.

If any of the Team had forgotten Robin's prowess in the weeks since he'd been away from them, they were to shortly receive a clear reminder. Superboy might be nearly invincible, but nearly wouldn't cut it. Especially as he often forgot to use his head for anything but a battering ram. Considering how long he'd been alive, it's a weakness Superboy could easily be forgiven for having.

After all, sixteen years hadn't been enough to give Kid Flash the advantage over him.

Quite suddenly, Superboy launched his attack. Robin had seen it coming. Superboy had a tendency to telegraph his moves. Robin saw fit to do more than just leap and flip and dart out of Superboy's way, he landed a kick in his adversary's back, right between the shoulder blades. It wasn't a very solid one, but it was enough to knock Superboy off balance, an easy enough thing to do if your opponent is going fast (especially if he isn't minding where he's going or how swiftly he's getting there).

When he landed and rolled, Robin seemed to flinch a bit, which may have been because he landed on the shoulder which had been shot. Or maybe he'd muffed the landing. Nobody ever asked him.

It slowed him down enough for Superboy to turn, close the gap between them and catch Robin by the arm. He was immediately, clearly reminded of the accident itself, because Robin executed almost exactly the same maneuvers, only not in panic or intent to wound.

If you've ever picked up a cat that didn't want to be touched, and had it stick the claws out of all its toes and then lash wildly with all of them, not to mention flipping about with its spine and tail and snapping with its teeth, you've got some idea of how holding onto Robin was for Superboy.

For, though Robin was a great deal smaller and weaker than Superboy, he was a very dangerous creature to grab from behind. He suddenly seemed to be all boots and elbows and Superboy remembered why you shouldn't try to hold onto him while sparring and let Robin go.

The effect, which was rather humorous to watch, was that Robin shot across the 'arena' like a little red lightning bolt and vaulted onto the railing, where he perched looking at Superboy with a decidedly wild look in his eyes. But not a panicked one, more satisfied than anything, like a feral animal who knows you can't reach it and finds it funny to watch you even try.

Superboy knew he'd basically been made a fool of, and that made him mad. This, of course, had been perfectly in line with what Robin expected to happen, what he wanted to happen.

For, more than being an acrobat, Robin was a performer. He knew how to play upon the feelings of his audience, to get just the reaction he wanted. He'd learned that almost as soon as he learned to walk on a high wire. Later on, Batman had taught him to use it in battle. For Robin, the whole world was a stage.

It didn't hurt any that the 'audience' part of the Team thought this was all very funny. Especially Kid Flash, who had just finished getting his ass kicked by Superboy. Superboy hated being laughed at, and the not-so-carefully-hidden amusement of the Team just made him angrier than he already was.

It was at this point that Superboy made a grave mistake. He charged blindly. And Robin took his shot. Robin hopped from the railing to the floor and slid right towards Superboy, which seemed a suicidal move. But Superboy couldn't stop or change direction when he ran blind. And it doesn't matter how strong you are, if your weight is shifted just so, you _will_ fall. Robin's boot connected with Superboy's right ankle as he was lifting it and he first wobbled and then careened off course, and fell with perhaps a more tremendous crash than seems entirely likely.

Superboy was more or less unhurt, though Robin had effectively taken him down and therefor won. When he had determined himself to be unhurt, Superboy opened his eyes and made as if to get up. Robin, standing in front of him, held out a serious hand and Superboy let him help.

"I could kick your ass with my arm in a cast," Robin said quietly, yet all the Team were able to him, especially his next words which were spoken in an almost threatening growl "never forget that."

Robin's eyes seemed to bore into Superboy for a moment, then the intensity was lost.

Robin let go of his hand and scampered out of the sparring arena, rejoining the rest of the Team. Superboy was a bit angry and even offended by the statement, until he looked at the rest of the Team and realized the comment had been meant for them all.

And now he knew why Robin had made such an idiot of him. Robin was making good and sure they all knew who and what they were dealing with. He was reclaiming the respect he felt he'd lost when he'd been hurt, and letting them know in no uncertain terms that he would tolerate no jokes about it.

And Superboy realized that the anger he'd allowed to consume him for just that critical instant was doubtless the same hot embarrassed fury which had caused Robin to accept his challenge in the first place. And perhaps Robin felt he had more to prove (or, more likely, he was just having fun) because he shot a defiant look at each member of the Team in turn and asked point blank:

"Alright, who wants to be next?."

* * *

_A/N: I want to thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. I always appreciate reviewers, but y'all were really unbelievably great this time around. It meant a lot to hear from you, whether you liked the story or not. So, anyway, thank you for reading and reviewing, hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next time  
_


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